Close Encounters 29
by chezchuckles
Summary: Octopussy: Agents Beckett and Castle are recalled to active duty at the CIA. Their first mission: rescue one of Castle's former assets.
1. Chapter 1

**Close Encounters 29: Octopussy**

* * *

 **for all of you  
** who, during hiatus, asked for Spy again and again  
 **with all my heart**

* * *

The night before their meeting with the Director, Kate Beckett Rodgers had a dream.

She wasn't the one who usually had dreams, those were left to CIA Special Agent in Charge Richard Castle - or Rick Rodgers, as her accountant husband was known to the world. Rick was the one to dream of his plans and visions for their future - but even after she woke, it clung to her like the fingers of mist in a low-lying field, clammy and haunting but already a ghost.

She couldn't remember what it was, only how it had made her feel.

Kate turned over in bed, the window filled with a pregnant moon. The light was yellow but the face of the moon was nearly red, a sight she hadn't seen - or perhaps, more accurately, hadn't paid attention to - ever before her in life.

A blood moon.

She slid out of bed, glancing over her shoulder at Castle. He was asleep, as rare as that was these days. And because he was in those scant handful of hours where he did get restful sleep, he slept deeply, and she wouldn't wake him for a dream.

She moved barefoot through the faint chill of the air-conditioned room; Castle was so warm that she woke up sweating if they didn't run the AC even at night in late September. She slipped out of the bedroom and moved down the hall for James's door, easing it open to peer inside.

The boy was on his back, sleeping like his daddy, one arm up and the other tucked around his elephant. She didn't see Sasha, so the dog must have gone downstairs. James's first birthday was coming up, and they had tentatively planned a dinner party with their extended family. And Castle's mother; she had to remember to make a point of inviting his mother.

As she had thought, she found Sasha in the kitchen, asleep in front of the open basement door, her fur pressed against the baby gate. Kate had been quiet enough that the dog hadn't stirred, and she tried not to wake her.

Now that she had found everyone, her family safe, she didn't know what to do. The dream had faded but the feelings hadn't, churned-up turmoil and frustrated grief, and it was somehow worse, not knowing what it had been. She couldn't battle ghosts, ghosts of the past, ghosts of the dead.

She stood in the living room before the back windows, looking out at the shadowed lawn and the tool shed, the neglected garden. They'd been on their island for the last month, and while their security team had kept things running here, their house still felt empty.

It would just take a little time to settle, she told herself. They'd only been back for a day, and they were taking a flight to DC tomorrow morning to meet the Director, so of course she still felt at loose ends.

Colin Hunt was out there somewhere, acting as their agent inside the Collective, while John Black was trying to disappear off the Task Force's radar. They had a lot of loose ends, she realized, and the disturbance she felt was natural.

But it was time to get to back to work, do damage control, reestablish their professional lives.

She was grateful, at least, that she and Castle were solid personally. They had only grown stronger, their marriage, their relationship, their family. Their partnership.

She might not be able to fall back to sleep tonight, but she would have other nights. That was important to remember.

They had a lifetime ahead of them.

* * *

It was James's first plane ride, and he wasn't even a year old.

Castle held the boy against his chest while Kate carried their overnight bag, following him down the jetway. He glanced over his shoulder at her, fingers tightening on the edge of the carseat, but she was at his back.

Their meeting with the Director wasn't until five - evidently he was squeezing them in at the end of day, not a good sign - but they were taking the second flight of the morning since James was with them, making a day of it. They'd return tomorrow.

Kate caught him by the back pocket of his jeans, tugged. "Leave it here, Rick."

He glanced back again, saw she'd stopped him by the door used by the ground crew. A collection of overweening luggage was piled there, all tagged with neon orange stickers.

Just like the carseat. Castle dropped it there, surprised by the informality of the arrangement.

"Seems dangerous," he muttered.

"We're all ticketed passengers," she said quietly. "Move along, babe. You're holding up the line."

Ticketed passengers. Right. Castle didn't appreciate having to take a commercial airlines to DC, but the presence of their son necessitated such a flight. He had tried calling Marjorie back, pleading a fake illness or grumpiness, but the Director's secretary had seen right through him.

And you just didn't cross Marjorie. Especially, Castle thought, when you might need her help again one day to free your wife from FBI custody.

Never knew with Beckett.

He stepped onto the jet, hunching his shoulders reflexively, James attentive and thoughtful in his arms. He had a teething ring in his mouth - shaped like a hippo, because Beckett had a twisted sense of humor - but he was gnawing away on it happily, his eyes taking in the whole scene.

"All the way to the back," Kate said, nudging on him.

"We should've gotten first class," he groaned, eyeing the cramped aisle beyond the not _that_ luxurious front rows. Damn, three by the window, four across, three more. Passengers were filling in behind them and also moving down the second aisle, and it was a full flight.

"Castle. Move your ass."

He grunted at her sharp jab, rather liking it anyway, but he got moving, inching his forearm up so he could brace James's head. Good thing, because an asshole stepped right out into him from his seat, turning and lifting his arms to the overhead compartment, and Castle just barely saved his kid from getting elbowed in the face.

"Watch it," he growled, feeling the snap in his chest.

The guy turned, a nasty look on his face, but he shut his mouth when he saw Castle, drew back into the narrow footwell in front of his seat. His quick movement smacked the back of his head against the low ceiling, and Castle moved on with a warm sense of glowering justice.

Kate's fingers came to the back of his arm, stroking, soothing, curling around his bicep. His shoulders didn't come down from his ears but the wolf in him seemed to sit back on his haunches, head cocked to listen for her command.

James peered around his shoulder and gave a squeak of surprise at seeing his mother, ducked his head into Castle's neck, flirting. Or shy. Though Castle had seen more often than not that the James's shyness was a cover for the intensity of his emotion.

He nudged his lips into the boy's head for a quick kiss, his eyes scanning the aisle numbers as he moved towards the very back.

"Here it is," Kate said softly. "Against the window, love."

He nodded, shifting into the tight quarters of the row marked 48, seats A and B. He felt sorry for C, whoever that was, though not too sorry, since Kate had the middle seat and they hoped to leave James in his lap for the duration.

He was hunched over, James clinging to him like a koala, trying to get situated, moving aside seat belt straps and crinkled blankets and a pillow, already uncomfortable. Kate had pulled the strap of the bag off over her head, and she was shifting to shove it into the overhead compartment, her t-shirt riding up on her hips and the taut, long line of her body stretched beside him.

Damn, what a beautiful woman.

James sucked on his teething ring and jerked it out of his mouth. "Mama."

Kate dropped back on her heels and lowered her arms, a soft smile on her face at being called by name. "Hey, wolf," she said softly. "Here, Rick, let me get that stuff." She was already sidling into the seats, moving the shit off the seat he couldn't get to, and he could finally sit down.

She had her hand cupped protectively over James's head until Castle had settled, and then she stepped back out to grab James's bag from the overnight. Castle shifted in the seat to attempt to get comfortable, putting James on one thigh so he could lift a hip and tug his phone from his back pocket.

Kate came back to them, took his phone from him and slid it into the outside pocket of James's travel bag. She folded easily into the seat and clicked her seatbelt on, the bag in her lap as she made faces at James.

Castle put on his own seatbelt, the soft click settling him, and then he sat James back against his chest, a hand up to keep the teething ring from falling to the floor.

"Well," Kate said, letting out a breath. "So far, so good."

Castle frowned fiercely at her. "Don't jinx us, woman."

She just laughed.

* * *

"Let's make a note of this, Jay," she stage-whispered. "Daddy does not enjoy coach."

Castle grumbled at them both, but he was leading the way off the plane with such damn relief that she couldn't keep teasing him. He'd been mostly miserable the whole flight long, cramped and yet trying to give _her_ enough room for her own long legs in the center seat. At her other side had been a perfectly obliging but tall man who'd said not a word and had pointedly pulled out earbuds and an ipad and ignored them.

But it had left very little leg room.

James had made only a initial startled chuckle during takeoff, his eyes growing wide at the sensation of fighting gravity, but he'd stayed content and quiet in Castle's lap for the short flight.

However, James looked to be just as pleased to be leaving the plane as Castle. He was even clapping, sitting up tall in his father's arms, beaming at everyone as they waited in line to disembark. The flight attendants, who apparently hadn't even known James was there, were charmed by James's applause, and they cooed over him and tried to tickle his chin as they passed.

James gave his mother a _what are they doing?_ kind of look, as if bewildered by their sugary-sweet, dramatic attention, and Kate winced for her forgetfulness.

She really needed to have Martha over more often; she needed to be purposeful about that relationship so that James wasn't astonished when confronted with grandmotherly, cooing behavior. Martha treated him the same way, a way unlike anyone else in the boy's life, and maybe every baby needed that, somehow. Needed someone who cooed and fussed over them.

She'd be better; she could do better.

Down the jetway once more, this time at Dulles International, and the throng and noise of people made James duck his head down to Castle's chest and stay there. Kate had found the carseat, bright orange tag around the strap, and she carried it herself, along with the bag, out of the crowd and towards a quiet spot along one wall.

Castle let out a relieved breath and she put down the seat, reached out to tug down James's jacket. Castle maneuvered the kid in his arms and fixed his clothes, lifting the boy to his face and sniffing.

"Whew, yeah. Okay, I'll change him if you wait right here," Castle said.

She lifted an eyebrow. "The men's restroom is hardly-"

"No, there's a family bathroom," he promised. "Just down from here. Right past the McDonald's. I saw the sign."

"Oh, well, I'll just go with you and help."

He winced and glanced down at the carseat. "I'd rather not carry all our crap in there, Kate. Just - wait for me?"

She sighed, waved her hand in dismissal. She didn't much want their bags touching the floor in there either. "Fine. Be quick. I'm starving and I'm not eating McDonalds for lunch."

He gave her a fast grin, taking the baby's bag from where she'd settled it on top of the overnight case. A kiss to her lips in good-bye, James's fingers tangling for a moment in her hair, and then Castle was striding away from her, making his way through the pedestrian foot traffic.

He was a tall man, but so were many. He was broad-shouldered, but there were others with that same athletic form.

But she still knew him from any distance, could keep her eyes easily on him in the crowd, and she didn't lose him at all until he disappeared inside the family bathroom.

She sighed and sank back to the carpeted wall to wait.

* * *

They snagged a cab outside the airport, Castle handing the driver their two bags while Kate slid inside and sat James on her lap. His eyes were heavy, though he was still awake and naptime was hours away, and she hoped to put him down after lunch.

Castle leaned into the back and ducked his head inside. "Hey, you want the carseat?"

"Isn't it law in Virginia?" she asked. It wasn't in New York, and she had assumed they'd use it for the longer drive to the hotel. "See if you can get it in here. Can you?"

"Yeah, shouldn't be that hard." Castle settled the carseat onto the middle space, a knee in the seat as he balanced, belting it in. James leaned his cheek against the side, and Kate chuckled, tugging him back so Castle could work.

"In a minute, wolf. Let Daddy get it secure."

James twisted in her arms and climbed to stand on her thighs, hanging on to her shoulders as he peered out the back window. He'd been singularly closed-mouthed for their whole flight, a solitary _mama_ when she'd sat down and not a word since.

"You feeling overwhelmed, or do you just not have anything to say to all this new stuff?"

James turned his head only slightly, giving her a fast look before he stared out the window again. She thought he was watching the driver load their bags in the trunk, and sure enough, she felt it slam shut and then James craned his neck to follow the man's progress to the front.

"He's going to drive us to our hotel," she murmured in his ear. "We're in a taxi."

James didn't bother repeating any of her words, but he did turn his head back to her with a round, surprised face. She laughed and kissed his cheeks, catching his hand as he moved to put it in his mouth.

"Don't chew on your fingers. Castle, where's his chew toy?"

Castle grunted something and slapped a palm on the carseat. "It's ready. Hop in, James. Let me buckle you up and then I'll find your teething ring."

"Right, teething ring. Chew toy. Whatever," Kate laughed, helping James wriggle into the seat. He was a good climber, and she barely had to support his bottom as he got into place. Castle took over, digging out the straps and moving the harness down over his head. It clicked into place and he tugged, checking, and then he crawled in on the seat's other side.

He was woefully far from her. Kate put her hand on the carseat's padded shoulder harness and wriggled her fingers for Castle; he laughed and took her hand, leaning in to kiss her knuckles.

And then James leaned forward and copied his daddy, giving Kate an open-mouthed 'kiss' on the back of her hand.

"Oh, thank you, sweetheart," she laughed, releasing Castle to cup the side of James's face. She kissed him back, leaning in around the carseat to get him, and he squirmed with pleasure.

"Mama."

"Yeah, wolf. Thank you for my kiss. What love."

Castle leaned forward in the seat and tapped on the plastic divider. "We're all set back here," he told the man.

"You gave him the hotel address or are we heading straight for food?"

The taxi pulled away from the sidewalk, executing a CIA-worthy insert directly into traffic without missing a beat. Castle winked at her. "We'll check in first, drop our bags, and see what's available. Hopefully within walking distance."

She nodded and sat back herself, her view partially obscured by James's carseat. As the Virginia landscape flashed by outside her window, she realized she was excited.

She would be back on the job, officially, the moment they stopped into CIA Headquarters, and she couldn't wait.

Agent Beckett was back.


	2. Chapter 2

**Close Encounters 29**

* * *

There was a French Bistro just down 355 from the Hilton where they had reservations, and when Castle saw it from the window, he tugged on Kate's fingers where they were joined with his over the carseat.

She turned to look. "Oh, that's perfect."

Castle shifted and watched the corner restaurant until it was out of view, and he nodded back to her. It was close, because now he saw the sign for the Hilton. Same side of the street; Bethesda was a nicely laid out town with clean sidewalks. He could carry James without trouble.

The taxi pulled up the drive and under the overhang at the front doors. Disregarding the cleanliness, it could be any hotel in the city - New York City, of course, because now Castle's default for any city was New York. However, the parking garage was a few feet down the sidewalk, the trees were vibrantly green, and the traffic was polite.

Not New York, definitely.

He let Kate unbuckle James, even as he was working to release the seatbelt and free the carseat. The cab driver came to her side and opened her door, gentlemanly, and Kate thanked him as she ducked and stood, James cradled against her chest.

The boy threw his chew toy to the pavement, Castle saw that much, and the driver leaned down and picked it up for him, giving it back with a bright smile. Castle got the damn seat released and wrestled it out of the back on his side, leaving it on the sidewalk as he headed for the trunk.

The cab driver had already opened it, and he was moving to pull out their bag, but Castle got to it quickly, unwilling to let it out of his own hands. He smiled, looping the bag over his head and picking up the baby's travel bag as well. Kate was up on the sidewalk with the seat, one of her knees knocking into the back of it so that it rocked; she looked excited.

Of course she was; he knew that. She got _bubbly_ or something, happy, even sweet, when she knew she was this close to work. Her job, career, her calling.

His calling was just her. Wherever she was, he came willingly.

She was giving him a slow smile, her lips pressed together and curling up, and he paid the cab driver cash with half a mind, barely noticing as the man left. When he stepped up onto the sidewalk with them, James leaned out and patted his chest as if in consolation, as if to say, _yeah, me too, dad, me too._

Castle laughed softly and leaned in, picking up the carseat even as he kissed her mouth. She hummed something appreciative and nipped his bottom lip.

"Let's check-in and then feed you," he murmurred, nudging her with his free hand to get her moving for the doors. "And then-"

"We'll see about that _and then_."

He grinned. Naptime was _and then_ and he had a pretty good idea what Kate was insinuating was in their future.

* * *

The bistro was a little more casual than Castle had expected, but Kate was happy. She fed James french fries from her basket and little pieces of deli turkey as they dropped out of her sandwich. She kept licking salt from her fingers and it was all he could do to finish his own meal with that going on.

Their table was out on the patio under a striped awning, and there was a nice itinerant breeze that occasionally drifted across the table. They were both in jeans and t-shirts, easy traveling clothes, and he had a suit to change into for their meeting - he hadn't seen her pack, but he knew she had dress clothes as well.

James clapped and Castle glanced up, saw him with his neck outstretched, mouth open, waiting like a baby bird for another french fry. Kate was teasing him with it, but she popped a small piece in his mouth, and he beamed back at her as he gummed it in his mouth.

Castle shook his head, taking a last swallow of his water, and then he sat back in his chair, comfortable finally. He let his legs stretch out under the table and closed his eyes, tilting his head back until he could feel the sunlight on his face. The plane had been a bitch, and he wasn't looking forward to tomorrow, but he might go ahead and upgrade them to first class.

Yeah, definitely.

He drifted for a moment, entrusting his security to Kate's awareness and the fence enclosing the patio, able to hear the traffic from the street. And then he felt a touch on his arm; her voice, soft and wrapping around him, came to his ear.

"You ready to go?"

"Yeah." Castle opened his eyes, saw James's drooping lids, the weak grip he had on his elephant. "He's already got the stuffed animal?"

"Yeah, he's tired. You too?"

Castle sat up straighter, shifting his feet under him. "No. Just enjoying the - freedom."

She smiled back, standing up now and leaning over him, a kiss to his forehead. "Carry the baby. I've already left cash for the check."

He smiled back at her and stood up himself, moving past her to unbuckle the kid from the restaurant's high chair. James cuddled into his chest and laid his cheek to Castle's shoulder with a little sigh; he smelled like french fries and the bananas they'd brought from home.

"Did he finish the rice cereal?" he asked, following Kate back into the bistro and through the cramped seating towards the door. She nodded or made some kind of noise, but it was acknowledgment, and Castle caught her hand when they stepped outside once more.

She slid her sunglasses down onto her face and then reached back and took his out from where they were hooked on his shirt. He grinned at her as she carefully maneuvered them onto his face; he had to readjust an earpiece, but she'd done pretty good.

She was being sweet. Yeah, she was really happy to be going back to work.

Their walk was more of an amble, but it was over soon enough, since the hotel was just down the street. Kate pushed her sunglasses up and released his hand to open the door, but a Hilton valet opened it before she could reach it.

Castle took her hand when they were on the elevator, the quiet of the solitary ride up to their floor. James had relaxed heavily against his chest and Castle turned so that Kate could see his face.

"Asleep," she whispered.

He nodded and the doors opened; she stepped out and tugged him to follow. Their walk was quiet, steps padded by the carpet, and Kate reached into his back pocket for the keycard. She unlocked their door for them and held it open, allowing him inside ahead of her, and he carried James into the sitting room.

The hotel had set up the portable crib against the far wall and Castle settled James onto the thin mattress. It was little more than a playpen, really, but it was sturdy and the bottom was low, and James wouldn't be able to crawl out.

When he lifted up, tucking the elephant into one corner, he saw Kate had taken off her t-shirt - a split second before she threw it at his face.

He caught it with a chuckle, the scent of warm skin enveloping him, and he followed her to their bed, shutting the door on their sleeping son.

* * *

The Agency sent a car, of course. It wouldn't do at all to leave a paper trail - no car rentals, no taxi cabs to Langley. The driver was an older man with graying hair that Kate had never met before, but her husband seemed to know him. They didn't seem exactly friendly, but Castle gave a sigh and a firm nod of his head when the man picked them up in the lobby.

The car was a compact Ford, and the backseat was cramped with the baby seat. It took entirely too long getting the whole thing set up, and the driver - who had not offered his name - said nothing, but did nothing to help either.

Kate held James in one arm, and the baby was still nap-drugged, blinking in the profusion of September sunlight and clinging to her shirt with one fist as if he thought he might slide off. She tickled his neck and kissed his cheek, gave him a running commentary on his daddy's frustrated grunts, and tried not to feel ridiculous bringing her baby to work.

At Langley. With the Director of the entire CIA.

James flicked his fingers over her collarbone where he clung to her shirt, and she tried to adjust so that he wasn't popping open her buttons. It was a nice button-down Oxford, perhaps too thick a material for this heat, but it was one of the most professional outfits she owned. She felt like she needed it. Her suit jacket - and Castle's as well - were hanging over the baby's bag that dangled from her shoulder.

Finally Castle turned around with a wild frustration in his eyes, shooting a look at their driver that Kate took to mean the man should have at least offered to help. She leaned out and handed James off to him, and he turned and placed the boy in his seat, buckling him in. Castle came back for the bag to sling over her his head and he put his hand between her shoulder blades, urging her towards the car.

She didn't like to be ordered around, and he knew that, and he was usually better about this rather patronizing kind of directing, but she was letting it slide in favor of just _getting_ there.

In the backseat, neither of them spoke much. James was drowsing against the side of the car seat, an occasional flare of his eyes in response to something out the window, but he was having trouble waking from his nap. The flight must have worn him out more than they'd expected.

Kate stroked her fingers down his soft hair, smiled at the startled look he gave her, rubbed her thumb over his eyebrow in response.

He reached a wet-fingered hand for her and she kissed it, wiping his fingers off on the car seat to dry them. He leaned his head towards her, straining against the safety restraints, gave her the sign for _more, more._ She didn't know what _more_ he wanted, but she palmed the side of his face and kissed his cheeks. He seemed settled by that, and sank back in his seat, content once more - the whole exchange wordless.

She wondered if they were supposed to talk to him more. He wasn't even one yet. She liked his little personality, and she didn't particularly feel he _had_ to talk more. He used his field signs that Castle had inadvertently taught him, and he called their names in sharp utterances, and that was enough.

Let him be quiet. Let him know how to hold his tongue, speak when it was necessary, and keep his own company. A better man for it, she thought.

"Good kid," Castle suddenly said, his hand coming up to lay on the top of James's head. He leaned in over the seat and kissed him too, and James gave him a shy, startled smile in response. "You're a good kid."

She felt her throat close up and turned her head away, struck almost like a wound, if joy could sting. Hers did. Castle always said she felt so deeply, _too much,_ she would reply, and he'd say, _no, no, baby, never._ But it was. It was too much.

His hand laid over hers on the carseat's harness, and he squeezed her fingers. She brought her eyes back to him and smiled, proud of herself when it wasn't shaky.

He let go with a smile of his own, and they both sat back in their seats with James making soft noises with his fingers against his lips.

And well, it was only their own fault that he was wordless. So were they.

They crossed the Potomac and she watched the bright green-gray of the river through the spaces, the snake towards the horizon. The drive was faster than she'd expected, and soon the driver was at the first checkpoint, signing the log while Castle and Kate passed up their Agency ID cards.

There was a long conference in the guard shack, and then they were given back their IDs. The whole time, an MP with a mirror was sweeping under their car, looking for bombs or contraband, and then they were given an all-clear to drive ahead.

Maybe Castle was more worried about this meeting than he'd let on, because he said nothing when their driver steered the car towards employee parking. Kate had to lean forward to redirect the agent towards the front entrance.

"Castle, we have to sign him in," she said, cutting off his protest.

He leaned back, a glance of stunned disbelief towards James. Kate couldn't help laughing at that look, patting his shoulder over the baby's carseat. After the effort he'd taken to get the thing wrestled and belted into place, after that whole emotional display and _good kid,_ now he chose to forget the boy?

"Wow," Castle said, leaning his head back. "Wow."

"It's okay. Habit, baby, I'm sure," she murmured, but she was still amused and she let him see it.

James grinned up at them, chewing on his fingers again. She tugged them out and tapped his nose, and he gave her a bashful look, ducking her rebuke.

"Here, wolf. This will actually help," Castle said, rejoining them. He had pulled the chew toy - teething ring - from the bag over his shoulder and offered it to James. The boy took it eagerly and shoved it back far, nearly choking himself.

But it seemed to have broken their unspoken vow of silence. "Did we bring the oral stuff?" she asked. "We could slather his gums in it."

Castle had already stuck his fingers in James's mouth. "I think he's getting four teeth back there. Holy shit, kid. No wonder you're gnawing off your own hand."

"The gel, Castle. Is it in the bag?"

"I don't think we brought it."

"Doing a pharmacy run after this, then," she said. "So he'll sleep tonight."

"He doesn't seem unhappy, just intent on cutting those teeth."

"Still," she insisted.

"Right, you're right. We'll get some after this meeting. I think maybe it's good we don't have any because it makes him drool all over the place. He can't feel his mouth."

"Oh," she murmured, sinking back in the seat as the car pulled up finally before the front entrance. "You're right. I'm not sure Marjorie would appreciate baby drool down her nice blouses. Not quite like I do, huh, wolf?"

Castle snorted - they both knew that was a lie; it drove her crazy when James got breakfast on her clothes right before work. The car had stopped and Castle moved to open the door. She unbuckled James from the seat while Castle came around, opened her passenger door, and she handed the kid out to him.

He held James with one arm while she unbuckled the seat - her fingers were smaller, and she'd told him things would go faster if he just let her do it. But she passed the carseat out to him and he took that as well, leaving her empty-handed.

"Want me?" she asked, her hands up for James, not sure if she was asking the boy or Castle.

"No, I got it," he promised. "We'll check the seat at the front anyway. Pretty sure we'll _have_ to."

"Good point." She smiled and followed him through the front entrance to Langley, ignoring the strange looks from fellow agents, smiling back at those who smiled to see the kid, waving her fingers at the ones she knew.

There was an analyst who had come through her department a few months ago - well, right after she'd gotten back from maternity leave - and he detoured their way when he saw her. Ravi, she remembered, saying his name under her breath to Castle.

He grunted in appreciation, and she held out a hand to Ravi as they both greeted him.

Ravi looked pleased to be remembered, and he patted James's back with affection. "Hey, there, little spy baby. You're so big now. Kate, I remember that photo the guys were passing around, and wow, how _big_ he is now."

Photo the guys were passing around? She turned and caught a fierce flame of embarrassment rising up Castle's cheeks. Oh, really? _Richard Castle, why I never._

"Yeah, hey there, man." He was holding James's hand, shaking it like a little greeting, and Kate was suddenly glad she'd wiped off the kid's fingers. "Aren't you so grown-up now?"

James glanced back at her with a sidelong look, as if to say _who is this guy? -_ so patently exaggerated that it was comical. Ravi laughed, amused by James's mistrust, and at least the kid was entertaining.

"It's Ravi," Kate said, shaking her head at him. "He works with us. You're fine."

James didn't respond, still silent, but he ducked his head down to Castle's shoulder, intently watchful.

"No, it's fine, it's fine," Ravi was laughing. "Smart kid. Can't trust the world, can you? Good man. You'll do just fine, won't you? See you guys around."

And then Ravi was moving away from them, just that fast, disappearing into the crowd of agents heading for the metal detectors.

Kate glanced over at Castle, at their son peering watchfully over his father's shoulder at the retreating Ravi, and then she shrugged. "No idea."

"He was aggressive," Castle said, as if in answer. "People aren't usually that aggressive with us."

"Too afraid to be," she chuckled.

He shrugged, but she saw he thought it was probably true. Well, that might explain James's unnatural distrust. The boy usually lit up around new people.

"Or he's still tired. The flight," she provided.

"Maybe," Castle said, but he was moving towards the reception area. She saw they had attracted security agents' eyes as well as friendlies, which was their job, she knew, and that was a good thing.

But it meant they ought to hurry this along - no more stopping to chat. And no time to wonder why James didn't like Ravi.

"We have a visitor," Castle said when he approached the desk. He was digging into the bag for their IDs and handing them over. "We can vouch for him."

The security agent actually laughed, and Kate felt better already.


	3. Chapter 3

**Close Encounters 29**

* * *

The Director's suite was comprised of two ante-chambers, the secretary's office, and then the Director's conference room and his personal sanctuary. Castle had been through the process more than once, but now that he was here, he wasn't sure Kate ever had.

She didn't show it though.

The security agents at the open doorway allowed them inside the first anteroom, a kind of waiting room with nicely appointed furniture not designed to be too comfortable. Here was the reception desk with a phone that connected to a security agent in the next room, the one through the closed door.

Castle paged the security agent from the phone - it was a strange throwback, the buttons of the keypad stiff and sticking as he punched _call._ The phone itself would never be picked up on the other side; it buzzed once and then the security door opened.

Castle shifted James in his arms; the boy had a Visitor's sticker on the back of his shirt and he kept wriggling his shoulders to feel it. Kate went ahead of him into the security room where they were wanded and patted down, the baby's bag sifted through, and their jackets searched.

Kate gave him an arched eyebrow as the security agent ran his hands over James, patting, thorough. He shrugged back, and the agent jerked his head up as if suspicious.

"He gets cranky if you don't buy him dinner first."

The agent blushed and jerked his hands back, and Kate scoffed at him, slapping his shoulder the back of her hand. "Not funny, Rick Castle."

He thought it had been and now James was giving them all smiles, but the agent shifted back to the desk and picked up the phone to announce their arrival to the secretary. The second man opened the door for them and Castle held back so that Kate could precede him into the office.

Marjorie was already on her feet, holding her arms out for James, cooing in a manner completely unlike her. Kate actually took a step back, and Castle was rooted to his spot, but James leaned out for Marjorie and went into her arms willingly, once more his old self.

He babbled against her embrace and wriggled to test her strength, but Marjorie bounced him and tried to cradle him like a baby. "What a beautiful boy you are. Little bit skinny, aren't you? Though-" She looked up and ran a critical eye over Kate. "Your mother is a skinny thing too. Come by it honestly. Richard, do you not _feed_ the poor girl?"

"Oh, I definitely do," Castle answered quickly, stepping up to Kate to block whatever that remark had been on her lips. "I do all the cooking."

"Maybe that's why," she muttered, rocking James against her chest.

"He's an excellent chef," Kate defended. "He throws things together and it's amazing."

Castle gave her a pleased, surprised smile. He hadn't - well, he was proud of it, yeah, but he hadn't known it affected her that much. "You - really?"

Kate slid her hand in his and gave him a brief squeeze. "Of course."

"Well, that's a revelation," Marjorie said, that sharp voice that could cut through the deepest concentration. "The domesticated spy. And what a beautiful boy you have. James, do you want to spend time with Aunt Marjorie?"

James gave her a unimpressed look - perhaps the only person ever to be underwhelmed by her - and then he held out a hand for his mother, leaning, fingers reaching.

Kate took his hand and kissed his palm. "You're okay, wolf. We have a meeting for work."

Castle reached out and ruffled James's hair, nudging his forehead when James seemed disinclined to let go of his mother. "Time to go." He leaned in and kissed the boy's nose. "Be good for mom, remember? Don't make it hard for her."

James blinked and glanced over at Marjorie. The woman clucked at him, and they all separated, Castle and Kate heading for the Director's office.

* * *

"We have a problem," the Director said.

Castle leaned back and refused to let the Director's drama upset his calm. They were home, back at their jobs, and things had settled - were settled. He wasn't falling off this cliff until it was absolutely necessary.

"There's a situation in Colombia," the Director continued. "Are you read-in on Plan C?"

"Plan C?" Kate asked from beside him. She was wearing a skirt. He wasn't supposed to be so fucking turned on by that, but he was. She never wore skirts. This one was professional, of course, with a coordinating pin-stripe jacket, but the black pencil skirt touched just above her knees so that when she was sitting down - like now - it was entirely captivating.

Damn, her legs were long. And in heels, he could see the flex of her calves.

"Plan C is shorthand for Plan Colombia," Castle said, recalling himself. "It was an operation that we began in 2000."

"We?" she said, glancing over at him. "I thought you were in the Army-?"

"No." Her knees were cute. Had he ever told her that? She had cute knees. Bony. "No, that was in between my Army stints. I was out by '96."

She blinked. "How did I not know-"

"This is nice and all, catching up," the Director said, snotty. "But let's get back to the point, Agents. We have a problem. _You_ , Agent Castle, have a problem."

Castle lifted an eyebrow, swinging his gaze back to the Director. The man was pissed. With them. Well. He supposed they'd spent a long time giving the man the run-around, so it might be deserved. Plus they were actively pulling the wool over his eyes, and the man hadn't gotten to this position without sensing duplicity somehow.

Castle smoothed out his face. "I have a problem?"

"You turned an asset back in 2000, a woman with some questionable background who nevertheless was in the right place to be of use to us."

The blood drained from his face.

The Director gave him a satisfied look and turned his attention to Kate. "Agent Beckett. Your husband began the Plan Colombia project with this woman, del Solar, as our key asset in the Cali District. FARC has their stronghold there, and the guerrilla leaders orchestrate their attacks with impunity - or they had been. This woman, del Solar, has been working for us for the last fourteen years, and we owe her."

Beckett shot Castle a fast look, but she only smiled. "Yes, sir. I understand."

"I don't think you do," the Director answered. He had a wicked gleam in his eye. "Salome Fernandez del Solar has gone missing. Her handler, Esteban, was found eviscerated and dumped in front of the US Embassy. His head was literally on a spike."

"Oh, God," Kate gasped. Castle frowned into the carpet.

"We have to get her back - if she's even still alive. She has nearly fifteen years' worth of secrets in her head, agents and contacts and mission details. Plus, there are people like your husband who have been gone from that side of the world for over a decade who are now in peril if she's captured and made to talk."

"Okay, back up," Kate said, holding up her hands. "Plan Colombia - what is that? The FARC is... a rebel force?"

"Guerrilla force in Colombia aligned with the drug cartels," Castle said shortly. He did _not_ like where this was going. "Leftist militia that the US has been fighting in secret, while giving money and weapons and training to the Colombian military. I was part of a team that instigated Plan C in the early 2000s, aimed directly at FARC leaders, cutting off the head of the snake."

Kate nodded. "I see. And this woman was - is - an asset, a kind of Mata Hari for the CIA. After nearly fifteen years without getting caught, I'm assuming she's very good. Of course she is; Castle trained her. And I bet she was warned when her handler went missing. Esteban? She's gone to ground."

The Director was smiling and nodding, evidently pleased with Kate's quick study. Castle was pissed. He knew what happened next.

Kate turned her head and looked right at him, as if she knew he was feeling unkind. "She won't make contact with just anyone. The only person del Solar would possibly come out of the woodwork for is-"

"No."

"You."

"No, Kate. I'm not haring off to Colombia."

"Yes, Agent Castle," the Director interrupted. "And you know it. If we don't want fifteen years of work to be flushed down the drain in Colombia - and the war on drugs is a very real thing, need I remind you - then you have to do this. You _both_ have to do this."

"Both?" he croaked, snapping his head back to the Director. "What the hell are you saying? What are you _thinking_?"

"I'm _thinking_ , son, about the mission. Del Solar's only drop site is a nail salon and spa in Cali district. You can't show up there looking for her. Agent Beckett can."

Castle pressed his fists into his knees and tried to come up with an alternate plan - anything at all. "Sir, there are other agents-"

Kate touched his knee. "You were her contact, Castle."

He snapped his gaze back to her, grimacing. "Doesn't mean we can't send someone else from the team. Esteban is dead, fine, God rest him, but what about Tucker?"

"He's dead."

Castle blanched; he'd missed that news, whenever that had happened. "Bird?"

"Not his real name, and he's in deep cover."

Well, duh, not his real name. Castle didn't know the real names of anyone but those in his own department. Even some of those - he had questions about. "Panama Jack?"

"In jail."

In _jail_. Fuck. "Frank - he was the one who had our tech-"

"Not available."

"Damn it," he growled, tilting his head back. There had been two others, Germans, who had been part of the initial team. Military intelligence, as Castle himself had been back then. Supposedly. "What about the Germans? They had a part-"

"No, Agent Castle, they did not."

Castle lifted his head. All right. Fine. The German involvement was still classified. "So there's no one."

"No one but _us_ ," Kate said firmly. "And we'll go. We don't leave a man behind."

* * *

"We need to talk," Castle hissed, catching her arm as they stepped into the secretary's office.

Marjorie had James on her lap in an upholstered chair, playing with something that looked delicate and expensive, but Kate turned back to Castle. "Talk about what?"

He growled and scrubbed a hand through his hair. "I need to - read you in on this, Beckett. It's more than you know."

"Okay," she said slowly, reading the expression on his face. Near-panic. "Okay, let's-" She glanced around at the professional office, the lack of real hiding places. Marjorie had lifted her head but she didn't look ready to relinquish the baby. "Marjorie, do you mind keeping him for a few minutes? Castle and I need to do some mission prep."

"Of course, Agent Beckett. You take all the time you need. Baby James and I are getting along like a house on fire."

"Um, good," she said hesitantly, the grimaced and turned to Castle. "Okay, we have some time. Tell me."

His eyes swept over her, up and down and then lingering somewhere around her thighs where she knew her skirt ended. Like they hadn't spent nap time getting that out of their systems.

Well, it was never really out, was it?

"Fine," he gritted out. "Follow me."

He snagged her hand and tugged, pulling her out of the secretary's office and through the security chamber. Both agents stood impassively, and Castle made some kind of _carry on_ gesture. "We'll be back."

Kate huffed, untangling her hand from his as they hit the main hall. She figured James was probably safest right where he was, past all those security checkpoints, but she wasn't entirely sure she could get back to him.

"Where are we going?" she muttered.

"Someplace - quiet."

Quiet meant without ears or eyes, and she was highly doubtful they were going to find a place not wired for lights and sound inside Langley. The CIA was-

Castle jerked her through the doorway and down a flight of stairs, snagging her by the jacket. She moved to keep him from tearing the material, but when he slipped through the next door, she knocked his hand away and stopped on the landing.

"Kate," he hissed, stepping back.

"What are you doing, Castle?" She huffed and gestured to the camera mounted above the landing. "There are eyes everywhere. This is the damn CIA. _And_ whatever you have to tell me, don't you think this is the one place-"

"It's private," he growled. "And I know a place." He reached for her again, but she stepped back. " _Kate._ "

She rolled her eyes, but she followed him, on her own steam, thank you very much. The door opened on the floor below, looking exactly the same as above, but the doors were labeled with numbers - no names - and she saw the telltale red eye in the ceiling panels overhead.

Castle went to a door midway down and put his shoulder into it. The door sounded like it was sticking, maybe warped, which seemed entirely wrong in a climate-controlled building. But he opened it with a flick of his wrist, thump of his shoulder, and he pushed inside.

She didn't follow, not at first. Not until he flicked on the light and illuminated what looked to be a mechanical room. She sighed and stepped inside, and Castle immediately shut the door, hard, and backed her into it.

"Whoa," she muttered, lifting her hands to his chest, holding him off. "You _know_ a place, huh? You know this place often?"

Castle groaned and dropped his forehead to the door just behind her ear, his body slumping against hers. "Kate, you have no idea."

"How many do I have no idea about?"

He growled and snapped back, eyes indignant until he saw the smile on her face. He broke then, slumping his shoulders and lifting up just enough for her to move. But she didn't; she slunk towards him and slid her hands to his waist, gripping the body-warm material of his dress shirt.

"I was kidding. I'm pretty sure you've never had sex inside the CIA." She tilted her head and studied him, that strange flash of guilt. "Have you? If so, I'm impressed."

"Kate," he muttered, shaking his head. His whole body seemed to shiver. "Why in the fuck did you have to wear that damn skirt?"

She laughed, tugging him into her again, pressing them both to the door. "This is what you had to 'talk' about?"

He grunted and hid his face against her neck, cuddled up against her. She patted his back and waited, sensing there was definitely more.

"Rick."

He sighed and lifted his head, a bleak resignation rolling over his face. "This woman you're so hellbent on exfiltrating?"

She lifted an eyebrow.

"She - uh - we..."

"Used this room?" she said, trying not to laugh.

His face flushed. She stiffened, suddenly struck by the idea that maybe - fuck - maybe they had.

"We... had sex. Have had. Were having." Castle scowled fiercely. "It was part of the approach with her, and how I maintained the asset."

Kate gripped his shirt, her fists on his hips. "What does that mean? Maintained the asset."

"Whenever I had to make contact..."

"Ah," she said, tightening her jaw. "You - made contact."

* * *

She seemed to be taking it well. He hadn't any idea how she'd react, but this was calm and rational.

She could be furious, but he wasn't seeing it. She hadn't even let go of him, her hands on his hips, one of her legs between his, standing too close with the door at her back. He waited, letting her digest it, and then she glanced at him.

"About how long has - did this gone on?" she said.

"It is most definitely past tense," he said, fiercely because a slip like that meant something. Had to mean something.

She waved it off. "No, I know." And then when he didn't relent, she reached up and cupped his cheeks. "I know you. That is not in question here. I just want to know what I'm going to be up against."

"Not _up_ against anyone. There's not contest, Beckett-"

"Hey, poor word choice, that's all. Stop. Castle. It's okay. We both have history. Don't you think I know that? I only meant, I want to know what to expect in Colombia."

He swallowed hard, nodding, but he wasn't sure she would take his news in the way he meant it. "I made my approach in '99, when Plan Colombia was just getting started. We needed information from within the FARC and we had no one. I spent about two months watching her, Salome, and she was obviously running some kind of long con. She was attaching herself to a leader named The Preacher - and that was how I got to her."

"Got to her," Kate said, nudging his waist with her hand. Prompting. She was a physical person, his wife, and it wasn't like he ever forgot that, but it made him - anxious - telling this story. A very physical story.

"I approached her for sex. A tool. She was using it that way and so was I. It was the method that-" Castle swallowed again and stood up a little straighter. Strange to think back to himself and the things he'd done without any real feeling, how dull that life of intrigue had been. "We had sex. I offered to pay her; she was furious. I used that psychological chink in her armor to put her where we needed her - the mindset we needed. She was fucking these FARC leaders, and she had access, and we needed her information. I told her she could give it away for free, or she could make a profit on whatever she was running."

"That makes sense," Kate said quietly. She had kept her hands at his hips, fingers tucked into the sides of his belt. "I understand that, Castle. And she - put out." Her lips twitched.

Was she laughing? This didn't seem laughable. "She did. She was playing her own game, but the CIA paid her for it. It was an agreeable set-up, more than, because she had our resources available to her if she needed something - through me, I was her handler. Though she always laughed and said she was mine."

Kate's lips flattened. Not amused now. And he didn't feel amused either because it wasn't fucking funny. It felt stark and depressing, thinking about how many years he'd had - nothing - and now on this side of all of it, he felt it thick in his throat like rage.

He was furious, and he was looking to piss her off. Join him in it, united against - against - whatever the fuck it was that had him twisted in his guts.

"And so now she's your source, the CIA's source, and to maintain her... what? How long?"

He tightened his fists, released them to reach down and close his fingers around her wrists. To keep her. He wanted to keep her, had to. "Eleven years."

He watched her calculate that - lightning fast - and hit upon 2010 with unerring accuracy. "And... then nothing?" But he could see it in her eyes; she was as twisted up now as he was.

"And then you," he said forcefully. "January of that year, I had a thing in Marrakech and then I went to Colombia to - fucking hell-" He had just remembered. "-they called it cleaning out the pipes. God. I feel sick."

"Castle," she gritted out. "January. And then?"

"And then, and then - I was in North Korea, trying to plug a leak (fuck we have a lot of plumbing metaphors), got my ass handed to me, came back here to the States following a lead, and found you." He took a deeper breath, relieved to be past it. Relieved to be back where he belonged. "I found you, and I - just wanted it all to stop."

Her fingers untangled from his belt, releasing him, and he swallowed hard again, but she dragged her hands up to his face, held him until he opened his eyes.

She stroked his cheeks with her thumbs and there was something so sincere in it that he felt like burying his face in her chest like James did when he was shy. It wasn't shyness, was it? It was just all this damn emotion flooding him, and she was looking at him with such forgiveness and he didn't feel deserving.

He'd been a cold-hearted bastard for a long time, and now that he knew the difference, now that she was the difference, he couldn't bear to bring that part of himself to her. That ugly, malformed, dead part.

"You took leave," she murmured. "And you stayed with me, and then my mother's case - and I put you right back here at the CIA even though you wanted to leave. I'm sorry. I haven't - given thought to what it might have been like for you. Not like this. I should have asked or _known_ but I never asked, and maybe you've felt like this for a while - do you still - do you want to stop?"

He realized he was staring at her. He blinked and closed his mouth, tried to find words.

Her brow furrowed. "If you want to quit, then I - I don't know what I'll do, but we'll figure-"

"No," he blurted out, standing up straight. "No, I don't want to quit."

She let out a shaky laugh and came into him, rocking him back on his heels with the force of her collision. He put his arms around her automatically, and she laughed again, but it had an edge to it.

"Okay, okay, good, that's cleared up. I - okay."

"I just meant - I didn't mean like that. I wanted to stop - stop being that machine. You remember. You know. I just - broke. I broke and you were the one that - that loved me better."

Her head tilted, her fingers smoothed at the back of his neck. "Oh, that's - a very generous way of looking at it, sweetheart."

He ducked down and finally pressed his forehead against her neck, took a deep breath of the scent of her, skin and lotion and soap and faintly the musk he loved, craved. "It's just true."

Her palm pressed against his neck, keeping him there. "And you're upset because we're going back. But, baby, we're going back different. Different people. You're not that machine; it won't be the same."

"I don't want to go," he said, and he could hear how he was whining, and it was deplorable really, his father had beat it out of him long ago, but he couldn't help it. He wanted Kate to make it better.

"We have to go," she murmured.

"Someone else could do it," he protested against her neck.

"No, Rick," she murmured. "There's no one else. We don't leave a man behind."


	4. Chapter 4

**Close Encounters 29**

* * *

Marjorie had a manilla enveloped sealed by the Director when they returned. She handed it over first, not James, and Kate watched Castle take it with a raised eyebrow.

"Mission details," Marjorie said, still with their son in her ams. "He said you'd try to weasel out of it, so he set it all up for you. Your legends are in there."

"But I have a cover ID for Colombia," Castle protested.

Kate gave him a sharp look, reaching out her hands for James to hurry this along. Her son leaned out for her, eager hands grabbing, and he upset his balance so much that Marjorie was forced to release him. Kate softly kissed James's cheek in reward, murmuring praise into his ear where the secretary - and wife - of the Director couldn't hear.

"You have _got_ to be fucking kidding me," Castle burst out.

Kate startled, James startled, and they both turned their heads to look at him. He held up two passports in one hand and shook them at Marjorie.

She was serenely unaffected, though she gave Castle a recriminating look. "He did his homework. We have a whole team on this one, Richard. It's important to get this woman out - dead or alive. She knows too much. She has fifteen years of CIA knowledge in her head."

"I'm not going in there as _Sam Hunt_."

"Whyever not? It was your legend often enough. And Sam Hunt and his wife Colleen are respectable-"

Kate gasped, and Castle flinched, cut his eyes to her.

Colleen. _Colleen?_ The woman from Ireland who had tried to fucking slit his throat?

"It's not acceptable," Castle growled. "We can't use these."

"Sam and Colleen Hunt are biologists on the rainforest conservation initiative. It's a legend you established years ago, and it works."

"Colleen?" Kate queried. She hadn't thought that Irish bitch had-

"A name he used once," Marjorie dismissed. "It was in his field reports. Just in case someone remembers Sam talking about his girlfriend."

Girlfriend. Colleen.

"Kate," he gritted out.

She glanced at him, tried for an easy smile. She didn't feel easy; she felt pretty fucking sledge-hammered here, despite how stupid that was. She had known he had a past, and that his past had been in service of his country, but these names, these things that came at her unexpectedly. She had no defense against it - against him. No defense.

"It's fine," she said finally. "We have to go. Castle." She was literally carrying his son in her arms. This wasn't a thing. "I want to get out of here."

Castle took a heaving breath but he was defeated; she could see it. He growled and shoved the passports back into the folder, taped it up once more. She nodded to Marjorie and picked up the baby's bag, but Castle took it from her fingers with a gentle touch - made all the more electric by the raw anger constrained in his muscles.

She could help with that, but only if they got some damn privacy.

"Tell the Director we're on it," Kate said, glancing at Marjorie. "Tell him it's as good as done."

"He knows," Marjorie said, an imperious sniff. "He wouldn't have picked you otherwise." She nodded towards the packet. "Contact details, safe house, it's all in there. And the safe house? I picked it, Agent Beckett. So remember that."

Kate blinked in confusion, but Castle was stalking for the door. Marjorie nodded and turned for the Director's office door, and Kate, with her son in her arms, was left standing in the middle of the carpeted floor.

Well, fine. Okay. They were doing this. This woman had been in the CIA's employ, Castle had used her for information, and she deserved to have people have her back. Exfiltrations, at this stage, always had to be fast. The team planned for months, sometimes even a year, but the actual strike was quick. The plan had already been made, all they had to do was execute it.

A week at the most to get his ex out of there, and then come home to their family.

* * *

"Whatever," Castle muttered, clipping the baby's seat into the metal hook in the floor. "Kate, just leave it alone."

"A commercial flight-"

"Kate," he hissed, turning sharply to look at her. She was cradling James against her chest but the kid wasn't fussing. "I'm not going back to economy class. The Director said we could use his plane, so I'm using his plane. He owes us."

She scowled fiercely at him, but he wasn't interested in having this argument again. They'd booked the hotel another night, but when the Director had called with the offer right before dinner, Castle had jumped at the chance.

He wanted out of DC and he wanted privacy to _talk_ to her. About everything.

He knew she was was severely unhappy about their cover IDs, and not because of the Hunt part of things, but Colleen. It hadn't been his idea, it would never have been his idea - it was less than nothing - but she was upset and he didn't know how to fix it and it irritated him, this not talking shit.

But they couldn't talk in a hotel about a covert CIA mission; they couldn't talk on a commercial flight. So the Director's private plane - hell, yeah, they were taking it.

When the baby's seat was fastened securely, he turned around and tried to be nice about taking James out of her arms. The boy didn't cling to her, only patted Castle's cheek and allowed himself to be lowered down into the seat. Castle belted him in and tugged on the clasp to be sure, but it held.

"Kate," he sighed, gesturing to the two private, richly-appointed luxury seats just in front of the baby. "If you would."

She grit her jaw but she sat down, pulling on her own seatbelt. Castle let out a breath and went forward to tell the pilot they were ready, and the co-pilot was there running through safety checks with the stewardess. The woman beamed brilliantly at him and he had a moment's blankness before he came up with the name - Jacinda; he had used her for a thing in Vegas.

Damn it.

The Director - had he done this on purpose? Castle wouldn't put it past him. It was like the man was pulling out every trick in the book to remind Castle of who was the boss here and where Castle's secrets were buried.

"We're settled," Castle said, ignoring the stewardess. "Baby seat fits perfectly there."

"Good. We've got a few more checks, but we'll make an announcement before we get underway."

Castle nodded and turned back for his wife, narrowly avoiding Jacinda's hand as she reached for his arm. He pretended like he hadn't seen it and he moved down the aisle towards Kate.

Well, _Kate_ had seen it.

Damn it all to hell.

She averted her eyes when he came up and by the time he was sitting down and strapped in, he saw she'd made up her mind to say something.

He braced himself for it.

"I just don't like being caught by surprise," she said. "So if there's - something to be told, then tell me."

"There's nothing in my past that feels like _something_ since you."

Kate sighed. "It's not a question of something or nothing. It's just _knowing_. I just want to know before they do, before I have to make polite conversation. Before some innocuous thing gets said about you that I should have known-"

"You know everything," he said, hurt. A little desperate. "It was only. We had an encounter - as part of the job."

"You told me that. I-"

"No. I'm talking about the damn stewardess," he growled, rubbing his hand down his face.

"Oh," Kate blurted out. And then laughed. It didn't sound great, but it was better than he'd expected. "That's - of course you did. The Director offers us his private plane and of _course_ you used her."

"Once," he qualified.

"God, do you think I care?" she said, laughing again. He glanced over and her face was brightly animated, her eyes actually amused. "Rick, I don't - what is she at all to me? To _this_? I don't care that you had some op with her, or even with this former asset. I just like to _know._ Don't make me look foolish by leaving me in the dark."

"So I'm telling you," he got out. "I'm telling you right now. This is why I took the damn offer of the plane in the first place. We can't talk on a commercial flight."

"Right," she said, setting her jaw again, some of the amusement fading. "It's just that you've spent the last four hours trying to worm your way out of actually doing our jobs. I keep telling you, Rick, that I don't care about this woman or what history you've had with her - I care about the fact that this is our _job_."

"I know," he growled. "I get it. I know. So let me fucking fill you in on the last fifteen years of that damn annoying job."

"Fifteen years," she echoed. "What have - what has the job been for the last five while you've been with _me_?"

"Well - I dropped her," Castle said roughly. "Of course."

"You did _what?"_

"I don't understand why you're mad at me," he frowned, shifting in his seat. She looked murderous. "I never went back to her after you. I asked for a sabbatical and never went back. There was you and I wanted you and you were different from-"

"Baby, that's sweet, but that's not the problem. The reason I'm mad at you is because you seem to think - from the beginning - that being with me means not doing your job."

He felt like doing damage. He pressed his fists into the armrests and ground his heels into the floor of the plane to keep from doing - something. James was looking at them with interest, chewing on his teething ring, and Castle couldn't even fake a smile for him.

He took a breath. "Kate Rodgers," he said, and even her name made him gnash his teeth. "If you have not unlearned all of John Black's fucking garbage-"

"What-"

"Being with you. Means. Not doing my job. Have I _ever_ said that? Has that _ever_ happened? You made me go back to this fucking job when all I wanted was to have you clear of it. You made me _better_ at this job."

"Then stop bitching about it, and _do your job._ "

"Just because I don't like this one assignment I've been handed down after five years completely out of the loop - completely unprepared for Colombia when we are exclusively the _European_ theatre - _Kate_ \- doesn't mean I won't do my job."

He was going to start yelling; he could feel it coming over him. James was staring up at them from the baby seat, mouth slack on the rubbery ring. Castle swiped his hand down his eyes just to keep his cool.

"It's just when you bitch about it so hard, so much, so vehemently, then it makes me think that it _is_ something," Kate got out. "It's nothing. We both know it. But you keep insisting. Why do you have to insist? Just come with me to Colombia and do the damn job."

"That's what we're doing."

"You should have been doing it for the last five years," she spat.

He glared at her. "I was doing _you_ for the last five years."

"We were doing each other. That doesn't mean you aren't able to fly to Colombia and check on an asset who has been entrusted to your care. Your responsibility."

"So now I'm in trouble because I didn't want her."

"It's not about want." She flared hotly and then quieted, going very very still. "Is it?"

"No!"

"Then. Why didn't you?"

"Want her?"

" _No_. Rick Castle. Are you being dense on purpose?"

He shot both hands up in the air, giving up, entirely. Entirely. What the fucking hell.

She snagged his sleeve. "Why didn't you do your job? Why didn't you take care of your asset? And it's not judgment here, Castle. I'm just asking why. Why you ditched her."

"I didn't ditch her. I moved to the European office with my father. Even long-held assets are reassigned. She was reassigned. Her handler's dead now, but he did his job - my old job - and now we're being called in because it _used_ to be my job."

"Was that so hard to say?"

"Yes," he yelled.

She blinked, glanced down at James as if the baby had called for her. But he hadn't, and the air was thick with tension, and he didn't know why.

Kate rubbed her temples with her thumbs. "Okay. Okay, let me start over. Rick, I only want us to do our job, do right by this woman, this person, this asset of yours that you - that the CIA - has made promises to for the last fifteen years. I feel like it's our duty, our honor - our integrity at stake - and all the more because you were the one making those promises."

"I didn't make her promises," he croaked.

"Baby, stop," she said, catching his fist in both of her hands. "Stop. Not personal promises. Only that you were the face of the CIA for her. It's not about anything other than that. We - we all - made her a promise, and she needs our help."

He sucked in a breath.

Kate stroked her fingers over the back of his hand. "Rick. Castle. Sweetheart, really, I don't understand this. You keep insisting she's nothing but a job, and I never once thought she was anything but a job. And yet every word I say, you act like I'm doubting you. I don't doubt you, love. I don't doubt you."

"I know," he said. "I know that. I..."

"You take offense at every word. I was only looking for information. Just let me _know_ and then I can do whatever is necessary to handle it. You fucked her. Well, that's fine, baby. You're a spy. I expected it."

He shook his head. "I didn't - it wasn't like that."

"Well, even if you liked her, or loved her, Castle-"

" _No_ ," he yelped, horrified. "No, I didn't love her. Or even _like_ her. She was a manipulative bitch and probably still is. No. No."

"Okay," Kate said, rubbing his hand. "Okay. So you just fucked her. It was the jo-"

"No. I didn't fuck her. I fuck _you_. I didn't-"

Her eyebrow raised and her fingers curled at his wrist. "You have a problem with my word choice? What should I be calling it, Castle? You had sex with her? You had her? You-"

"No. No, I only do that with you." He growled and rubbed his free hand over his face, and when he could see her again, she looked like she was laughing at him. "What. Don't laugh. This isn't funny. You make it sound like I had all these people before you."

"Well. You did."

"No. I didn't. I've only ever had you. God, Kate. Nothing is at all the same for me. Nothing - what I did with her was - wasn't anything, and every word that I think of isn't the right word for what it was because it wasn't. It wasn't. You remake all the words. Ever since you, everything has meaning, has such _meaning_." He lowered his voice, desperation pouring through him. "Sometimes, a lot of times, you and me - we fuck. You and me, love. We do that so - so good. And it's not right at all to use that word for her."

Kate lifted her hands to his face and cradled his jaw. Her thumbs stroked his bottom lip.

He took a breath again.

A voice from behind him butted into the moment. "I'm so so sorry that I've caused this - this terrible fight between you two. I couldn't help overhearing, and oh, what a beautiful little boy, look at those startling eyes. I am so sorry. Please, ma'am, please don't let this - this one time thing - don't let it ruin-"

Castle growled and snapped his head to the stewardess, glared up at her. "It's not about you. Fucking hell."

Jacinda gaped, mouth opening and shutting. And then she got over her sense of indignation, flustered and pissed, and she lifted her nose. "We're pulling back from the gate," she said.

And then she left, but as she went, she tossed over her shoulder, "Well, honey, he screwed me too. Looks like you have a problem."

Kate burst into laughter.

Castle did _not_ think it was funny.


	5. Chapter 5

**Close Encounters 29**

* * *

James fell asleep the second they got into the air, as if the drag of the earth against their takeoff had been enough to pull him under as well. Kate had pushed off her shoes and rocked the carrier a little with her foot, but the boy hadn't needed the help.

Castle had not let go of her hand, proprietary about it, keeping their fingers laced. He touched his lips to her knuckles, again and again, and she realized he was reassuring himself, and not her.

So she let him, watching her son sleep as her husband found his equilibrium once more. She had the feeling this wasn't about an asset in Colombia, but she couldn't figure out what it _was_ about. Her, she thought, something to do with the last few months' trauma, and work.

Probably being at work after the summer they'd had. Kate being back at work when so much had been threatened and shaky and uncertain. But she was fine, and more than capable, and she could only prove it to him by doing the job.

It would be a short flight, and not much time to talk, so when the stewardess - face still flaming with her outrage - gave them bottles of water and snacks and then disappeared, Kate drew her foot away from the carrier and turned in her seat, drawing her knees up.

"So, fill me in, Rick. How it was for you."

He let out a long breath, but already she could see that he was being settled by slipping into work mode. Debrief. Like telling a story. He was good at stories.

"Where do you need me to start?"

"I don't need. I just want," she smiled. "You know that I love to know your stories." A flush of memory went through her, how she'd used those stories last time. "If you don't mind telling me-"

"I don't mind," he said quickly.

Her betrayal of his story, using it against him to probe the origins of the regimen, it seemed like a thing of the dim, murky past. She was grateful for that. "I never heard about Colombia, when you used to tell me all the places you'd been."

She hadn't meant for it to sound accusing, she had only meant to engage him.

But Castle rolled his shoulders and frowned at her hand still held in his. "Well, back then, you were asking after my failures. The times I was wounded, the times I nearly died. You know, when you asked about it all, I thought it was a way to combat the darkness. A way to - weave a spell around us. After I got so sick, and I nearly died, you being obsessed with all my near-death stories just seemed like a way to ward it off."

"It was," she sighed. She found herself fiddling with his fingers, rubbing her own against his. "The only way I knew how. But you never even mentioned being in Colombia."

"Because it wasn't a failure," he said quickly. "It was - is - ongoing. A success. We've decimated the drug cartels in Colombia. Drug cartels are the number one supporters of terrorists-"

"Except for foreign governments," she couldn't help add.

He huffed, but it was true and he knew it. "Except for that. The number of fatalities and major crimes in Colombia has dropped statistically significantly."

"You mean the numbers are impressive."

"Yes." He shrugged at her. "Numbers get funding. Anyway, not our department, sweetheart."

"But important work. That you used to do - that you helped to found."

"I helped," he nodded. "Laid groundwork in '99." His face changed and he looked at her with a kind of shock. "When your mom was murdered. I was in Colombia, doing recon. That's - that's strange."

"Why's it strange?" she whispered.

"I should have been there."

"Where?"

"With you."

Kate dragged his hand up to her mouth, kissed his knuckles, laid his hand at her heart. "You're here with me now."

He let out a breath and leaned his head against the seat's headrest. "Yeah."

She let that moment stretch on, just long enough to really feel it. And then she nudged him. "So. In '99 you were there."

"Envoy mission, that's what my father called it. I did a lot of little things like that, after I got pulled from the Army in '96. You know I was covert in Ireland first. And Colleen happened, and Black punished me for not listening to him about women, about keeping my secrets, and he sent me out on these envoy missions. Here and there. No real place."

"The Army. So 1996 is when Coonan got out?"

"No. No, he wasn't out, Kate. He was black ops, being used on his furlough as a hired gun. The training, the regimen, and we knew it was bad but we didn't know. And then Bracken hired him and..."

"My mom was murdered."

"Your mom," he sighed.

"And you were being punished. Colombia was punishment?"

"Boring. Scutwork. I'd go to a district, lay low, drink, be just disreputable enough to attract the right kind of notice, find myself dealing drugs, working the network just to establish the hierarchy for the CIA. By 2000, we knew what we had and didn't have, and what we didn't have was an inside source. And we wouldn't. No gringo was going to get into the inner circle."

"So this woman."

"Salome," he answered.

"Her. And?"

"She was already inside. Running some kind of con, I never did understand what. Money, obviously, but more than that, power. She wanted power. And the CIA - that affiliation could give her that power."

"You made the approach," she encouraged. His hand shifted against her chest and dropped, and he leaned forward, tugging James's blanket a little higher, some pointless task that wasn't necessary but maybe soothed Castle.

He sat back in the seat. "I made the approach. It was my call, and I had something to prove."

Something to prove? Oh, about women. "Because of Colleen. Oh, I get it. That's why you used her name when you there."

"Yeah, probably was still thinking about it - that stayed with me for a long time. How wrong I'd been about her. Zebra never changes its stripes, and I forgot that when I latched on to the nearest warm body. Really. That's what Colleen was."

Nearest warm body. Kate ran her hand down his arm. "Easy to do, inevitable really, when you'd been without that for so long." Love, she meant, and he seemed to understand her.

"Yeah," he husked. A shrug of his shoulders as if to throw off memory. "I set it up myself. Salome. I'd followed her for a while, a month or more, established her routine - it was pretty fucking varied - knew every last detail-"

"Ah, so stalking is a recurring thing with you."

Castle froze.

Kate laughed and squeezed his bicep. "Baby, I'm teasing you. But it is pretty funny."

"Took me four days with you, Kate. No. One day. One hour. I knew I wanted you. Not as - a transaction - that's what it always was before. A transaction. I wanted _life._ Life with you. So damn sick of transactions."

She lifted her hand from his bicep and stroked his face, pushed the hair off his forehead. "I know. I'm so glad you knew what you wanted. Chased me down." His eyes closed for a moment, and she saw then how much this cost him, this story. He didn't want to be back there; he wanted to be here.

She let him take as long as he needed.

Castle sighed. "I, uh, I got incriminating photos of her with the FARC leaders. She was the girlfriend of one of the cartel's biggest enforcers, and I had all this legwork I'd done to make my case against her. It was almost too easy."

"Was it sex first or later?"

"First," he nodded. "That was the approach - that was _her_ approach. So I made myself her target, made myself useful. She came on to me, I took her back to one of her places. She-" Here Castle laughed and Kate lifted an eyebrow. He shook his head. "She tried to give me a lap dance? She - mostly failed. She was just my type, I guess, and that was why. I was so absolutely determined to prove myself invincible. I didn't even get hard for her."

Kate let out a little huff, surprised by the - well, that he was giving her those kinds of details. But at the same time, this was what they did - they talked freely to each other and always had, especially about sex. She couldn't imagine him not telling her the details either.

"I bet she was pissed at you," she said.

"She was. But it also gained me some respect. First man to be completely - I think she said I was the coldest machine she'd ever touched." Castle shrugged, lopsided, and kept going, but Kate had heard it.

Machine.

So Salome was the one to call him that; the Colombian asset had been the one to name him.

"She went down on me and biology took over, of course," Castle was saying, "but it wasn't all that much. I didn't come and she got frustrated and crawled into my lap and did her own thing, all smug and - she was a bitch, that was for sure. So then I - well, I remember I fucked her pretty hard, and her carrying on in my lap as if - it all felt like an act we both knew really well, our parts were laid out for us and we didn't deviate from the script."

A machine. She found herself fascinated. It didn't even touch on here and now, and she had no idea what this woman looked like, but she was getting a mental image from 'his type' and 'bitch' and the dark hair, the complexion, and how furious this woman had been with an unresponsive male between her legs.

And then how - carried away when they did fuck. How it would sweep over her, this woman Kate didn't even know, how it would have been with Castle - so animal in that biologically imperative way, just as he'd said, but entirely without the emotion.

As easy as it was to picture Salome, she found it almost impossible to imagine _him_. But for a few times, when she'd seen him stone-faced and confronting their enemies, her enemies; she could transpose that face on the image in her head.

Kate shivered, not sure if she ought to be turned on by it, but-

"Well, anyway, after that I got up and spread out the photos I'd taken. Right over her body, one after another, and the sweat made them stick. It was hot, siesta, and the window was open and the ceiling fan going and the edges curled up in the humidity. She didn't even look at them, she just laughed."

"Oh?" And smoked a cigarette, Kate thought. She had smoked and looked at Castle through the haze and laughed because... because she had been afraid of what she'd found in her bed? Ten years of it, though, and Castle her handler, so had it been fear, really?

Or a sociopath? One conscience-less person meeting what she'd thought was another. _Here is my equal._ Might as well be in bed with him.

Hadn't Kate felt that too? _Here is my equal._ But it had been in passion and drive and - and sheer dominance, the need to prove themselves, and even the ache of old old wounds. Why had Kate found it and not this woman? Why had Kate been able to touch the real flesh and blood man behind the machine?

"She was a bitch," Castle said then. "She laughed and rubbed one of those photos against her breasts like she was - you know - and I just stood there and watched her give herself an orgasm with it. And then she sat up, and it was obvious I wasn't interested and that's when she got down to business. I told her, you've done all this, you're playing your own game, and that's fine. We want in on it."

"And she went for it," Kate said. "Because of you. Because she wanted you."

"She didn't want - maybe she did. I don't know, I can't imagine why. I barely looked at her. Colleen was just too fresh. I had one erection the whole time, and that was just to get the whole thing over with."

Kate gave a little laugh. Of course he thought that was the height of rudeness, only one. Well, so it was with him. "She wanted you because you didn't want her. Lots of women like that; I'm sure you know."

"I suppose," he said, frowning. "I don't know, Kate. When we get there, you'll see what I mean about being a bitch. I don't think she cared one way or another if I wanted her. And honestly, that makes me nervous. Not _knowing_ what was really going on there."

She studied him, his frown and introspection. Rarely was Castle muddled about a person's character; he always knew. "It was a long time ago, and you were new at this."

"Not that new," he muttered. He shook his head again. "But it worked. I made a point to always be extremely callous with her. It was super fuck-buddy, just get it done and get down to business. A transaction - like I said. That's really the perfect word for it. It was almost like she couldn't trust me unless she'd fucked with me first. So we did that and I proved I couldn't be fucked with, that this was all cut and dried, and then we were back on track."

Kate nodded, fingers slipping over his bicep. "And now she needs help - whoever and whatever she is - and we'll go down there and get her out."

But he still seemed troubled.

* * *

They landed at a private strip outside the city.

Castle carried James in his arms, tugging the lone suitcase after them, while Kate took the empty carrier with her bag in its seat. The hangar was spacious, echoing, and James straightened up to look around them, taking in everything. So Castle pointed out the planes and named them for his son, being quiet to keep his voice from adding to the noise.

Ryan had driven to meet them with a company car and hopefully a report. "Ry," Kate said, nodding at him as their friend turned and escorted them out towards the lone SUV. "What've you got for us?"

"The rundown on Colombia's Cali district, where you'll be, plus a few toys for the trip."

"Have you stepped in for Q?" she quipped, lifting an eyebrow back at Castle.

It took a second, but then he remembered Bond. "I'm assuming our Master-at-Arms hasn't gone AWOL."

"No, no," Ryan chuckled. "She's still there. She packed your case herself. But the Chechnya-Georgia thing is gearing up right now-"

"Shit, I forgot," Kate muttered. "I'm supposed to be in that meeting."

"We got Omkar in there," Ryan told her. "Analyst side is well-represented. Don't worry."

Beckett cursed again and glanced ruefully towards him. Castle shook his head at her, trying to show _not our problem_ without somehow indicating he didn't want to do his job. But really, the fucking Director of the CIA had shanghaied them, what could be done?

"I missed a budget meeting," he told her.

"You hate budget meetings."

"I do," he said gleefully. Ryan laughed, at least, and James too, joining in on the chuckling with that knowing look on his face.

Castle landed a kiss on his son's cheek. "What're you laughing at, old man?" He wheeled the suitcase to the back of the car and gestured for Ryan to pop the hatch. When it clicked, Castle lifted their luggage into the back and slammed the trunk closed.

Kate had already fitted James's seat into the back row, buckling it in like an expert. She took James from him and made faces at their son while she fit him into the restraints, garnering another low laugh from the boy. Castle went around to the other side to give Kate shotgun, and the chance to catch up with Ryan about whatever analyst details she might need.

"Yo, Castle," Ryan called from the driver's seat. "Pull out that case from under your feet."

Castle snapped in his seatbelt and leaned over, found the handle of the briefcase and tugged it out. He lifted it onto his lap and pressed his thumbs into the clasps, waiting for it to recognize his print.

When they popped on release, Castle lifted the lid.

"Holy fuck," he croaked.

"Uck!" James waved both hands and kicked his feet, as if he too was just as excited as Castle.

Kate glanced over her shoulder at them, handed back a snack container for James to dig into. "What've we got?"

"A fucking lot of diamonds is what we have. Director said we were giving her what she wanted, but this?"

"It's nearly the GDP of a small country," Ryan said tightly. "And don't you think I didn't sweat bullets driving it out here."

"Diamonds," Kate echoed.

Castle turned the briefcase around and let her see it. Glittering, sparkling wealth all expertly packaged in black foam.

"Oooh," James praised, clapping his hands.

"Uncut," Kate said, an amused tug of James's foot. "Aren't uncut diamonds _harder_ to recoup for cash?"

"In most legal places," he said, still mulling that over.

But Kate got there first. "She wants diamonds, but the Director is making her work for it."

"Must be," Castle muttered. Playing games, even now. He spun the case around and slammed the lid shut, but Ryan cleared his throat.

"Ah, there's a hidden panel, Castle. Don't shut it all the way, pull the leather tab at the top."

Castle narrowed his eyes, searching with his fingers for the off-center and minuscule leather knot. It felt like an irregular seam, not a _tab_ , and of course that meant it was nearly impossible to be accidentally discovered.

Castle lowered the inside tray and found a sweet, badass collection of knives and survival gear. "Excellent. Beckett, how're your skills these days?" He turned the briefcase around again and she rolled her eyes.

She hated knifework, but that was only because he dominated her. On her own, against a mid-range to skilled opponent, she was a beast. She had a willingness to fling herself into an attack, which always scared the shit out of him, but it got results. She came in close, panic-inducing close, and she handled the knife with grace.

"What else, Castle?" she prompted, slapping at his knee to get him talking.

Castle picked up the long-handled knife from its sheath, couldn't help himself. "Survival gear. A garrote - wire, it looks like. Um, let's see, five knives, a card-reader, two locators, satellite cell phone, oh, wait, two of those too, and... glasses?"

Kate glanced back, eyebrow raised.

Castle shrugged. "A pair for each of us. I guess we're supposed to be nerds, right?"

Ryan lifted a finger from the wheel, his eyes in the rear view mirror to meet Castle's. "The glasses each have a camera, location device. I don't think the Director trusts your asset all that much."

"Neither do I."

"I gave Beckett the Agency briefing, but basically, your asset hasn't made contact in over three weeks. One of the drop sites has been used, but the man from the embassy said it was swarming with hostiles and he won't touch it. Not after Esteban."

"Compromised?" Castle said, narrowing his eyes thoughtfully.

"They think so."

"What about her usual appointments with the handler?"

"Well, since that's where the man was murdered," Ryan began, shaking his head.

"This doesn't sound good," Castle answered. "Her handler was murdered on-site?"

"At their meeting," Ryan filled him in. "It's all there in the file."

"Is it a read-only file," Kate asked, "or did you need clearances for this?"

"I needed clearances," Ryan told her. His fingers drummed on the wheel. "But Marjorie called _me_ and gave me those. And then she said, _forget those numbers, honey_. I've never had the Director's secretary - personal assistant - call me on the phone and give me top-level security clearance."

"She's not supposed to," Beckett said wryly, glancing back at Castle.

He shook his head. "No. She's not. But that's how the Director does these things. The ones he wants handled. All on Marjorie."

"Seems stupid of her to take the heat for that," Ryan said.

"Or very smart," Kate mused. "They're married. Can't incriminate each other. And it comes out of the Director's office but not _from_ the Director. It's very smart. It's precisely what Castle and I have done whenever things crop up regarding the regimen." She turned in her seat and gave him a steady look. "We could learn from them."

"No," he said quickly, pointing his finger at her. "No, Kate. We are not playing politics."

"Oh, baby, if you think anyone in the CIA can get away with _not_ playing politics, you're so very naive. Sweet, adorable really, but naive."

Ryan snorted.

Castle didn't think it was all that funny. They had a case of uncut diamonds, wicked knives, and Salome's last handler had been killed _during_ their meet.

The Director had neglected to mention that one little fact. But what it told Castle was that the CIA didn't trust her as far as they could throw her.

And Castle trusted her even less.


	6. Chapter 6

**Close Encounters 29**

* * *

At home that evening, Kate teased her son with a sippy cup, hoping he'd go for it and make her job easier here. James followed it with his eyes and then snagged it, chuckling to himself as he stuck it in his mouth, guzzling watered-down orange juice.

Kate ruffled his hair and turned back to the dining room table, spreading the photographs out in front of her again. She had a long way to go before she could complete the timeline, but she was an analyst and this was her usual work, even if her son was hanging out at her feet, whining for dinner.

Which was usually Castle's job. Where'd he go?

Just then, Castle came in from the living room with a sheaf of maps in his hand and the iPad in the other. "Yeah, hey, okay, look at this."

She paused in her work, placing her finger in a report about the FARC's movement in early March, a report compiled by an analyst in another department. When she looked up at Castle, he was waiting for her full attention.

She nodded. "Shoot."

"Here's a map of the Cali district of Colombia. And here is where we're staying. Cartagena."

"Okay," she said, following his finger and recalling a line from her report. "And Salome supposedly was living with the Preacher, here, in Naranjas."

"With the Preacher? You mean Arroyo?"

She nodded. "Yeah, she rode his coattails into some of the deepest levels of FARC."

"Who else, can you tell?"

Kate turned back to the reports and leafed through the stack, finally found the paper-clipped pages with the corresponding photo. "Mm, Alfonso, here. They were photographed together by an outside intel service. Confirmed by one of ours."

Castle took the photo from her and scanned the pages, narrowing his eyes. "Damn, she got far."

"Mama."

Kate glanced down, touched the top of James's head. "Hey, baby, what do you need?"

He lifted his cup up to her and Kate took it, shook it to be sure it was truly empty.

Castle reached for it. "Here, I'll get his juice. You work on establishing Salome's timeline."

Kate nodded, releasing the cup to him, nudging her son with a knee. "Go with Daddy. He's gonna get your juice."

"Come on, wolf," he said, tapping the top of James's head. He left the iPad and maps on her table, and Kate turned back to the timeline.

She needed to do this fast. Make the connections, make the _right_ connections, and find out where Salome had been so they would know where she'd wind up. If she'd been taken alive, or if she was running for her life, then it was only through research that they'd make contact with her again. And then they could take the necessary steps to get her out.

1\. Make contact. 2. Exfiltrate.

Easy enough on paper. But frustratingly hard to extrapolate from the mess of notes and photographs and analyst's reports spread out before her.

* * *

After a hurried dinner, they were right back at it. Castle put his hands on his hips and surveyed Kate's work with a critical eye. "All right," he said. "Give it to me."

She let out a breath and pointed to the beginning of her improvised timeline. The photograph he himself had taken of Salome Fernandez del Solar, their one-time asset, at the bar where he'd picked her up.

"Lo," she said, using the name he'd given the woman. "Code-named by you, of course, in 1999. This was the first contact, in a bar in the Cali district. After contact, your team followed her to a house in Cartagena where she lived with four others: Alvarez, first name unknown, deceased January 2000; Marco Turnagent, now an enforcer for the cartel on the same streets; Andre Timoche, who has risen to number four or five in the FARC, maybe higher; and finally, Pablo Escarado, whereabouts unknown, presumed dead."

Castle nodded. So far, this was information he had known - the four men, though not their current locations and positions. "She was very good at drawing ambitious idiots into her web."

Beckett refrained from making a comment, though Castle could tell she had something to say. "From there, Lo moved to a single occupancy residence - though it's possible she'd held the place in reserve all along. You assumed, at the time, a falling out with the FARC leadership, but four years later, this photo was taken."

Castle crossed his arms, glancing only once at the image she pointed to. Salome and Andre. A conversation inside a hotel room. The agent who had procured that photograph had died right after he'd made the intel drop. That had been Castle's first inkling that 'Lo' - his easy to turn asset who'd painlessly passed them information on the FARC - had more going on with her.

"As Lo explained it to me, she was followed by one of Andre's goons and he roughed her up. Hard to say, but the information from her ever since that time has been solid. So Andre never knew she was a CIA asset, even if he knew she had dealings with other men."

"All right," Kate said. "Fast forward to two years ago. Her new handler files this report." Her fingers tapped the table. "Lo accompanied by Preacher; Andre Timoche approaches; A. Timoche brandishes weapon. Lo stepped between."

"A fight over the black widow," Castle muttered, rubbing his forehead.

"That was my guess," Kate offered. "But I found two other places we can put Lo during the last five years - the home of Timoche _and_ the home of Hector Gomez."

"The baseball player," Castle smirked.

She slapped his arm. "No, you ass. Gomez is a FARC leader. Timoche is a FARC leader. But Preacher - Arroyo - is the head of the drug cartel. They all three have estates in Cali, in the _heart_ of the drug cartel's iron grip. And she's playing all three of them, Castle. And look at this. The Colombian federal police served a warrant on the Timoche plantation and were massacred only six months ago. No arrests."

"Shit. _Shit_ , I do not want to get involved in cartel business." Castle scraped a hand through his hair and sank down to the chair. "What is she even _doing_ getting into the cartel shit?"

"What I want to know is why did she think she could get away with playing _two_ well-known FARC leaders? Did she think they wouldn't find out?"

"I don't think she cared," Castle muttered. "No, okay, look. We have her drop sites. Three. We'll hit each one as the fucking marine biologists Colleen and Sam Hunt, retire to our resort villa-"

"Resort villa?"

Castle grinned. "Marjorie hooked us up. She said happy second honeymoon."

"Honeymoon. Are you kidding me?" Kate rolled her eyes, but Castle saw the gleam of excitement, that thrill that chased her spine just as it did his.

They were going out on mission.

Castle tamped it down, focused on the dining room table once more. "Okay, next. Locations. Give it to me."

Beckett shuffled those pages away and now pulled out another stack, spread it along the table. "These are the drop sites," she started.

Castle crossed his arms over his chest and took a step forward, yelped when something squawked underfoot. He glanced down and found his son crawling away, dragging his blanket and corduroy elephant with him.

"Hey, sorry, wolf, sorry," he called softly, crouching down. "Come here. You're tired too, I know. It's late."

James turned and glanced at him under the darkness of a dining room chair, and then he scrambled out from under it. He got to his feet and ran for Castle, throwing himself into his father's arms. Castle cupped the back of his head and gently stood, swaying until James dropped his head against Castle's chest.

Kate laid her hand on James's back. "Drop sites," she said quietly. "Three in Cartagena."

He nodded. "Shoot."

He could plan a mission and rock his son to sleep at the same time. Been there, done that.

James liked the sound of their voices anyway.

* * *

With her son curled against her chest, sleeping deeply, and the morning beginning to press in against the windows, Beckett leaned her head back against the headboard and studied her husband.

Castle was surrounded by reports and devices, pacing the room as he went from intel to intel, caught in his own private world. She was fast approaching exhausted, but she hoped to sleep a few hours here soon and then catch up on the plane.

Plus, they had a resort villa on the beach, and she was seriously looking forward to that.

Castle scratched his neck and rubbed at his chin, staring down at the map displayed on the iPad. She could see where his scruff had begun to thicken as the night grew thin.

Kate curled a hand over the back of James's head. "You do know we're not marine biologists, right?"

Castle turned his head and glanced at her. Blank face.

"Castle," she said sharply. "We're supposed to be conservationists with the Rainforest Initiative. Not marine biologists. You keep saying the fucking Hunts are marine biologists."

"No, I knew that," he said. A moment too late.

"Did you look at our covers?" Kate narrowed her eyes at him. "Or have you been obsessing over the cartel shit?"

He gave her a weak grin. "Ah. Obsessing?"

"Uh-huh. Rick, it's late, honey. And some of us aren't super."

Castle lowered the iPad and then glanced helplessly around the room at the scattered reports and the thick piles of notes. "It's late," he echoed.

She nodded. "And while I'm sure you could go on indefinitely, I'd function better-"

"Of course," he broke in, already hurrying to gather up the paperwork. He had a system for it, which she didn't bother trying to help with, and he made tidy piles of all of it while Kate rocked James back and forth in her arms.

Castle put the piles against the far wall and laid his iPad down on top of one of the stacks, came back to her quickly in the bed.

"Want him in his crib?" he murmured, passing his hand over James's head.

She nodded.

"I'll take him, baby," he said, a soft kiss on her mouth. "I'm sorry. Should've kicked me sooner."

"Kicked you only when it was necessary," she said back, releasing James to his arms. The boy didn't even stir as his father cradled him close, and Kate leaned in and kissed her son's forehead. "Night, little wolf."

"I'll take Sasha out-"

"I did that an hour ago," she said, suppressing a smile. "You barely noticed."

He straightened up, flushing a little - his ears got pink. She patted his arm and nudged him towards the door, getting out of bed with a wince as her back popped and her knees tensed.

"Go," she told him. "I'm gonna wash my face and crawl into bed. If you stay up, love, work in the office, not downstairs. Wanna be close."

"No," he said, already at the door. "I'm coming to bed. Save my spot."

She chuckled and waved him off, and when he had disappeared down the hall with their son, Kate made her careful way to the bathroom.

She'd gotten stiff, holding James against her even braced at the headboard. Hours now. She'd taken Sasha out when the dog had given up on them, whining in the hall for bed, but she'd carried the sleeping boy down with her, watched his lashes in the moonlight as his eyes had moved behind his lids in dreams.

Sasha had retired to James's room immediately, but Kate hadn't wanted to put her son down. Alone. Without her. She was leaving him tomorrow for Colombia, and while her mission was low-risk if high-value (in theory anyway), she couldn't help the longing that washed through her.

Longing for the island and the ease of their days. For putting her son to bed every night and waking him for breakfast in the morning. For the ideal.

Even though she knew she couldn't sustain it. It wasn't in her to be that person, day in and day out with no end in sight.

Kate Beckett wasn't built for island living.

Poor Castle. He probably could be, if given the chance-

No, well, tonight had proved that false, hadn't it? Castle thrived on the mission. He was dragging his feet about this one because he'd had some misplaced notion that his past relationship with the woman mattered, and maybe too - and this she hadn't thought of until now - maybe Castle was a little repulsed at his old ways, his old methods, his previous life.

The ways John Black had taught him, and the remoteness with which he'd handled life.

Not life. No, her beautiful husband hadn't been living. He'd been performing his duty, undertaking his mission, and he'd found himself cold and hollow at the end of the day.

As Kate brushed her teeth in the sink before the wide mirror, she couldn't help feel a pang for that man and who he'd been. What he'd done, how he'd fought in a kind of directionless manner, searching for something more.

Kate rinsed her mouth out and then hurriedly washed her face, slapping cold water against her closed eyes to wake herself up.

She wanted to stay awake just long enough to remind Castle of who he was now.

Drying her face with the hand towel, Kate let out a breath and lifted her head. Tired, but not bad. Make-up long gone and dark circles under her eyes, but still.

Kate reached for the hem of her t-shirt and stripped it off over her head. She peeled off her leggings and stepped out of her panties, and then she turned around and went back into the bedroom.

Castle had already made it back; he was turning down the bed with his back to her, though he must have heard her enter. "I'm not tired at all, but I ought to get what I can." At her silence, he turned around only to stop dead, eyes hungrily devouring her.

She stepped right into his body and skimmed her knuckles at his waist. "Then let me wear you out, love."

* * *

Her father took the bag from Castle with a shake of his head. "No, no, it's fine. We'll be just fine, won't we, James?" He leaned in and kissed the baby's cheek even as Kate seemed to cuddle the boy closer.

Kate had carried him upstairs from the car while Castle had grabbed the boy's luggage, but she didn't look like she wanted to let go of him. Despite her insistence that this was a mission they couldn't refuse, she didn't seem to want to leave him.

It reassured his heart. Not that he thought for a second she wanted to leave their son, but it told him he wasn't completely out of his mind when he felt the same way. When he wanted to put his family back in the car and go home, pretend Colombia wasn't calling.

"We'll be heading in to work first," Castle told Jim. "So we'll be in the area for about an hour or so before our flight leaves. Call us if you need anything."

"Will do. But we'll be fine." Jim laid a heavy hand at the back of James's head, Kate still cuddling the boy. Castle didn't say anything, but her father had no qualms about it. "All right, Katie. I can take him."

 _Not so subtle there, Jim._

Kate sighed and kissed James's cheeks, and then his neck to make him giggle. The boy tilted back in her arms to escape, leaning all the way into his papa, and Jim chuckled and took him.

Forcing Kate to let him go.

Castle dusted his hand over James's face, that pleased little smile of his, and then he gave up the pretense and leaned in himself, kissed his son soundly. James gripped the hair at his nape and hummed, not letting go.

Kate helped Castle untangle, laughing softly, the three adults brought close by the boy. James babbled in his ear until he was forced to let go, and then he dropped his head to Jim's shoulder and gave them all shy smiles.

It was early for him, too early, with their flight leaving at eight and work at the Office to accomplish before they left. Jim had the boy's diaper bag over one shoulder and a duffle on the ground at his feet, while James drifted closer to sleep in his arms.

"You guys should go," her father murmured, winking at them. "The two of us will settle in for an easy morning. Hopefully a nap."

"Thanks, Dad," Kate said softly. "It helps knowing you've got him."

"I left word with Mitch," Castle added. "He'll have a team on you while we're gone. Just in case."

"You hear anything from Colin Hunt about the Collective?"

Kate sighed. "He made contact once he was in place, but nothing since. We're taking it as a good sign."

Jim nodded, rubbing James's back slowly. The boy's eyes were drooping, and Castle took it as a sign as well.

"We're going. Come on, Kate." He tugged on her elbow as he turned, spoke to Jim over his shoulder. "Mitch is your contact if you need anything. But you can always reach us on the permanent line. We might not answer, but leave a message-"

"I know the drill. You guys come home in one piece, all right?"

"Oh, Dad," she muttered, rolling her eyes and going back for one more kiss. James's cheek and then Jim's. "We'll see you in four, five days."

"Love you, Katie."

"Love you too, Dad. And you, wolf. Be good for Papa." Another kiss, and Castle made a noise in his throat to get her moving. She brushed James's hair back from his face and finally stepped away, taking Castle's proffered hand.

He squeezed her fingers and forced himself out of Jim's apartment, down the hall to the elevator. At least it was a new building, a secure building with a doorman and cameras monitored by one of Mitchell's team. He felt his son was safe here, and that made it easier.

In the elevator, Kate leaned her cheek to the top of his shoulder, having to slump a little in her heels to get there. Castle unwound his hand from hers and slid his arm around her waist, hugging her.

"It'll be like a little vacation," he told her. "Long weekend."

But he didn't quite believe it.


	7. Chapter 7

**Close Encounters 29**

* * *

They had an hour at the office before their first flight - not commercial of course - and Castle intended to clear his desk the best he could. He shuffled through the data sticks in his office, looking for the latest projections on the operation in Kiev. Their department was being split even further, due to considerations and clearances over his pay grade, and he had been required to turn over all of his intel on the Ukrainian front. It was falling under the purview of the Russian sector, which he thought a mistake, but at least it was one less thing on his plate.

A knock came at the open door and Castle glanced up, saw Reynolds standing at the threshold. "Come on in, Michael."

Reynolds nodded his head and stepped inside, but he closed the door.

Castle paused, his fingers on the USB device labelled _Lapland 2_ , a stupid codename if he'd ever heard one, but he didn't stick it into his laptop. He watched Mike Reynolds compose himself and sink into the chair opposite.

It was just past five-thirty in the morning; Reynolds wasn't even supposed to be here. The man had day shift, was in fact overseeing the running of operations while Castle was out.

"Ren?" he prompted. Didn't have time for this. He had to relinquish the data on the Kiev mission and make damn sure the boys in the Russian sector didn't overlook the details. He was supposed to put the rest of the data in lock-up on his hard drive while Kate assigned an analyst to curry over the rest of it. It was the worst timing for a request like this-

"Agent Castle, I have some misgivings about your assignment."

Castle lifted his head, raised an eyebrow. "Oh?"

"I did some unauthorized digging."

Ah, shit. "Give me the broad strokes here, Ren."

Reynolds leaned in, elbows on his knees, his hands clasped together. "After we got word, I looked at the asset-"

"Please tell me you didn't break anonymity-"

"No, sir," Reynolds said quickly. "I have no idea the identity. Just have the code name."

"Good," he said gruffly. That shit was supposed to stay anonymous and coded for a fucking reason. They could not have the whole office knowing the names of their informants and assets in the field. Entirely too dangerous. "Keep it that way."

Reynolds dropped his head. "Yes, sir." Chastised, and that hadn't been Castle's intention, not really.

"With that out of the way, tell me your concerns, Ren."

The man lifted his head, steel in his gaze. Sometimes it came back to Castle what had been done to this man at his father's order. Maine had tortured Mike Reynolds for information in that little station off the coast of Tunisia, and Reynolds hadn't broken.

What did that do to a man? What did Reynolds still carry?

"I went through the transaction list for Lo. Just - everything the asset was involved with out of Colombia. Mostly it's been cartel dealings, which isn't anything out of the ordinary, not to the naked eye."

"All right." Reynolds shot him a look for interrupting, and Castle saw he'd thrown off the man's rhythm. "Go on."

"I wanted to get a feel for the operations. I... figured out it's a woman-"

"Keep that to yourself."

"Of course. But it was pretty obvious. All of the asset's sources are high level cartel leaders, which is nothing suspicious, really. It just irritated me. Got me thinking."

"All of this you did last night?"

"Yeah, and this morning. Worked through."

He nodded, indicated Reynolds should continue.

"Looking at the list, it's clear that Lo offers up tidbits of information on a schedule. There was a pattern. It didn't seem to correlate with anything I could see, but patterns kept showing up everywhere I looked. Or well, maybe pattern is too strong a word. A feeling. An impression of everything being a little easier than it should."

Castle narrowed his eyes, rubbed his chin. "Oh?" He cleared his throat. "I haven't been assigned Lo's handler for many years. So give me your impression of all these - patterns. Final conclusion. I want to hear that first, then the evidence."

"Lo has been very careful to keep her CIA contact on the hook."

"Lo is playing us, you mean." It was a pretty damning charge, and as Castle studied Reynolds, a man he'd taken to like a little brother, Ren couldn't meet his eyes.

"I don't know that she's playing you. Her intel has been correct. But. There's something more to it. You could call it strategic losses, if you were looking at it from the cartel's side of things."

Castle grunted. "Did you put an analyst on this, Ren, or did you go over it alone?"

"I went over it alone," he said, frowning. "I know I'm no analyst, but I did the research."

"You talk to Kate at all?"

"No, sir. I brought it to you. You're my superior officer."

Shit. He almost wished Kate had looked this over since he knew his wife was so gungho over this. Coming from him, it wouldn't have the merit. "All right. You have a report or-?"

"No, sir. I thought it would be best not to commit it to archive."

Could be true. "All right. Well, tell me the evidence, the patterns."

Reynolds nodded, began ticking points off on his fingers. "First, Lo has submitted to face-to-face meetings with only three people: you, the initial contact, Agent S12, and Agent Hammels."

"You knew Hammels?"

"Yes, sir, by his designation, Esteban. And in one report, he wasn't listed by designation, which made me assume he's no longer in operation."

Castle grimly shook his head. "Hammels is dead. He was killed in the line of duty. It's why Kate and I are going down there now."

"Lo has gone to ground?"

"Pretty much."

"It makes me wonder about Agent S12. Who he is - or she. But I'm betting it's a male operative, and I'm even going to bet that it didn't work out for a reason."

"S12 requested reassignment, if I remember correctly."

"Took over from you, so you knew him." Reynolds stressed _him_ as if Castle had already answered the question, as if Castle had given it away.

Perhaps he had. "He did," he answered finally. "Took over from me. I briefed him. He had a long-standing relationship with the asset."

"I'm also going to assume what that means."

"You'd probably be correct," he sighed. He couldn't imagine Salome would have changed her habits in the last decade.

"So I started thinking, why would Agent S-One-Two request reassignment?"

"It said that? The reassignment request was on the read-only file?"

Reynolds nodded. "And that is _never_ on the read-only file. So you know what it makes me think, right?"

Turned agent. S12 had been compromised, and the file sanitized by the case-worker who had dispatched him. Castle shook his head. "All right, ignoring that side of things for now. What else did you come up with?"

"The last three pieces of intel that Lo fed Agent S12 resulted in raids on cartel holdings. Over ten million dollars worth of seized property and goods."

"Drugs," Castle said, already following it out to Reynolds's conclusion. "Money and drugs. That's what you think this is about."

"Isn't it always about money and drugs?" the man said quietly. "If you knew Agent S12, then I'm sorry for saying it so baldly, but I think he was skimming money. I think he was taking her intel and using it for his own means. He got caught, and he 'requested reassignment', according to the CIA database."

"Shit. Now that you say it, I haven't seen him around. He should be on a docket somewhere. Even if his number changed, a reassignment request would do that, like yours changed from A89 to E19, switching sections, but I'd still know him."

"You would?"

Castle nodded grimly. He remembered the man well, about his age, good agent. A little arrogant, but who their age wasn't arrogant about having survived so long in this business? Fuck. What had really happened to him?

"So S12 is gone, just - disappeared, something. He's been made or he got turned or-"

"He wasn't made," Castle muttered. "He was too good for that. He might have turned. That's always a possibility. Or someone ratted him out, someone _he_ trusted blew his cover. Happened to me before." Colleen.

Damn it, was Salome the man's undoing?

She was ruthless and greedy and she was a cold-hearted bitch, but she had never pretended otherwise. She had been in it for her own gain, sure, but more than that, she'd been addicted to the thrill. She had _liked_ sleeping with danger; it was the only thing that had gotten her off.

And now? She could be dead. She could be mixed up in whatever S12 had going on. S12 might even be dead, taken care of quietly by the cartel - or even the CIA.

"I just thought you should know," Reynolds said. "Because it didn't look like anyone else had caught on to the pattern."

No? Well, Castle thought the Director had. Most definitely. That man was no idiot.

And now Castle had to wonder what the fuck he was taking his wife into down there.

* * *

Kate had a list for Ryan and Omkar that was entirely too long, and she was slightly ashamed of that. Being off-site and managing things via proxy meant she had fallen behind on eyes-only material, and because it was confidential and classified, she couldn't actually take work home with her. She needed about eight hundred hours in the office, and she just wasn't getting it.

This trip to Colombia was a pain in the ass, and if she was being truthful with herself, she didn't especially look forward to coming face to face Salome del Solar. It was almost as if, in Kate's mind, this woman was a stand-in for Colleen, the Irish asset who had tried to kill him.

She was that edgy. Might also be the fact that Kate's legend for this mission was also Colleen, and that the Director was seriously fucking with them by giving them _Hunt_ for a last name, and on top of that, the faint stirring of jealousy because Salome had _named_ him - the machine - and now she was stalking down the halls of the Office, searching for Omkar who should be here, but wasn't, and where the hell were her people?

"Beckett." Castle caught her by the shoulders and stopped her forward momentum, jostling her out of the spiral she'd found herself in. "You ready to go?"

"I have to find Omkar to sign off on this," she said, lifting the data pad. "Damn it."

Castle raised an eyebrow.

"Shut up," she muttered. "I'm not as together as I should be."

"Baby, we just came back from an extended recovery. No one is together after that."

She bet Salome was together.

Damn.

His eyebrow climbed higher. Had she said that out loud? No. No, she had at least managed that. "Let me find Omkar. I'll be fast. Meet you topside?" she said, darting in to kiss the corner of his mouth.

Castle gripped the nape of her neck, cast a fast look down the empty hallway, and then crowded her back against the wall. Her elbow juddered as she smacked it into the door frame that led into Operations, but then his hips pressed insistently into hers, and his mouth came down and claimed her. Rough, hot, all too brief.

"What was that for?" she breathed, opening her eyes to him. He caressed the side of her face and pushed her hair back behind her ear, then stepped away.

She came down off the wall - she'd been up on her toes for that one, holy hell - and he took the data pad from her nerveless hand. "Because you tried to peck my cheek like I'm your dad, and because I can do this."

"Chain of custody-"

"Fuck chain of custody. I'll take Omkar the damn list for the two of them to fight over. You go topside and get our special gear. You're better at that anyway."

She blinked but Castle had already disappeared down the hallway, the taste of his ire on her lips and against her tongue, a little brutal, entirely seductive.

What had _him_ so pissed?

* * *

The flight from New York to Dallas would be fast, an Army plane with no tail ID and two close-lipped pilots who ignored them as a rule. Castle had moved from endearingly bullying to annoyingly despotic, and as he tried to buckle her into the safety harness, she had to smack both his hands away.

"I can buckle myself in, Castle."

He had the decency to look ashamed, and he let go of the harness, sank back to the jump seat across from her as the engines roared. "I know. I - do know that."

She took a breath and let it out slowly, finished buckling the safety harness. The webbing behind her was a little more flexible than she was used to for these jump seats, but she wasn't a nervous flyer. As the plane gained lift, she saw Castle's jaw work and his fingers tighten on his own harness. She wondered if he _was_ a nervous flyer. She'd never thought to ask - he always seemed so capable. This far into it and she'd never paused to look past the iron shell he armored himself with.

"Baby, you okay?" she asked him, lifting her foot to touch his calf.

Castle snapped the buckle home and pressed his hands to his knees. "I'm okay."

She waited.

He huffed. "Don't like what we're going into. So soon after - everything. You aren't even officially cleared-"

"I'm cleared," she said, hearing the hard edge in her voice. She was really tired of the way he tried to hedge her. "Logan cleared me."

He nodded. "No, I know. Your levels are right and you're in fighting shape. I've made sure of that myself." A dark look slanted her way that jolted her with awareness, just that fast. "I think everything feels a lot more precarious. I just have to get back into the habit. We always used to work well together."

"Does that - are you saying you don't trust me?"

He scowled. "No. I trust you. Don't even go there, Beckett."

She huffed back at him, scraping a hand through her hair and wishing she'd pulled it back. "I don't mean that way. I mean performance. Do you think I'm weak some-"

"No."

"Then what is the issue here?"

"The issue is that you died, and I barely got you back, and then we went through fucking hell to keep you alive, and now Colin Hunt and the Collective, and I guess I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop. Bad things come in threes, whatever. I don't know. I just don't like it."

She forced her shoulders to relax, her jaw to loosen. It wasn't about her. She had to stop taking that on. "We probably should have seen Dr King."

"Probably," he muttered.

"Haven't we had our three?"

He startled, gave a little laugh, only to scrub both hands down his face and growl. "We've had a hundred or more. I guess I thought someday it would stop."

"Stop?" They had talked about this, she thought. About quitting, about retiring, about how neither of them wanted really to stop when there was so much to be done. For them, for James, for the CIA. And she had been so relieved to know he got the same thrill she always did, but now. "What would stop?"

Castle sighed. "The constant mortal peril. I thought one day we'd figure this out and it would be easy again."

"It used to be easy?" she whispered. Something clawed at her heart.

He scrubbed his eyes like a child, like James, and the clench in her chest redoubled. "It used to be just - in and out - no fuss, no damn-"

She held her breath, wondering how that statement ended, what it meant about how he felt. He loved her but did he _like_ loving her? Didn't she just make him miserable, all the time, pushing and never relenting, never-

"No feelings." Castle glanced bleary-eyed towards the cockpit, shaking his head. "I used to be a machine, and it never affected me, none of it. But now there's fear."

"Fear."

"Of losing you. The only - only thing in my life I absolutely can't live without. I _love_ you and it - it's everything, it's everything good and right, and I never want you anywhere else than right here. With me."

Her jaw dropped, the claw in her chest snapped, spilling heat through her body. "How dangerous is this really?" she choked out, her foot curling at his calf.

"I don't know, Kate. Lo isn't who I thought - or she's exactly who I thought-"

"Not the mission, Castle," she growled, unbuckling the safety harness, working to get out of the damn webbing. "The fucking flight. How dangerous could it possibly be?"

He stared at the work of her fingers, and then his gaze snapped to hers. "What are you-"

"Get the fuck over here. Be _with me._ "

He was out of his harness before she could even unbuckle her restraints.

* * *

In Dallas, it was an easy jog down the tarmac to a registered private plane and a flight plan that included showing their legend passports to the pilot who took them on board. He was filing his paperwork while they settled in and Castle's fingers stroked her knee.

He hadn't meant to put his hand down her pants on that Army cargo plane. He really hadn't. But he loved the faint afterglow on her cheeks and in her eyes, how she looked at the whole world as if she were amused and pleased with it, this thing she had created.

A goddess surveying her territory.

That was entirely how he wanted her going into Colombia (with a connection through Cuba) on a mission like this. His wife, confident and a little fucked, her ownership over him clear for the world to see.

If he was being honest with himself, he wanted Salome to see it.

"I think I'm afraid of her," Castle said into the quiet of preflight checks.

Kate turned and cast her glorious smile over him, lifted her hand to stroke the hair at his nape. She was very pleased with him; he really fucking loved that. He practically closed his eyes and purred.

"Yeah, baby, I can see that," she murmured.

"I don't mean to be."

"She's your past, and despite everything, you're ashamed of it," she sighed. Her thumb circled the shell of his ear. "You shouldn't be, sweetheart. You did very good work in Colombia."

"No matter how it was done? Ends justify the means?"

She was silent - because neither of them believed that - but he saw she wanted to disagree. She had other feelings on it, but he also knew she never had the words she thought were right, and strangely enough, her methods of persuasion got to him. She stroked his nape and studied him so carefully, with such honest regard, that just knowing she thought him a good man made him feel better about himself and his past.

He nudged his nose into her wrist and kissed the steady beat of her pulse, grateful for that too, and she smiled and leaned her shoulder against his, drawing her hand down his back and scratching.

"Don't be afraid," she said finally, her voice firm but quiet. "There's no need to be afraid."

He cast his hand wider over her knee, possessive and needful at the same time. "I'll try," he offered.

She smiled and shook her head, but she didn't say anything to that.

"We have the night in Cartagena," he said, his chest filling with the way she touched him and coddled him, the way her fingers felt on his back and her shoulder against his. "At the resort villa. We can have dinner in town."

"Mm."

"And dessert," he murmured, sliding his hand up her thigh. She gave a quick breath in and a flash of her eyes.

"I better be the dessert you're talking about."

He laughed, leaned in to lightly kiss her - lightly, because they couldn't start something on a private little plane. "Yeah, baby, I'm talking about you. Thanks for being so crass. Gets me excited." He touched her chin and she lifted her eyebrows, dancing them a little in a mock of his usual expression.

He leaned back in his seat and patted her thigh, removed his hand because he really had to stop touching her. She trailed her own hand down his arm, laced their fingers together. She crossed her legs, one long calf over the other, the sharp point of her knee. She looked perfect, the white of her flimsy tank top blouse, the tight black jeans, her hair cascading around her face. She had sunglasses in the bag, and a wide-brimmed hat, and just as they'd always done, for every single one of their missions in public, she was the star of the show.

Hiding in plain sight.

"Love you," he said, cavalier, off-hand, not at all casual though. She caught it and twitched her lips, squeezed his fingers.

"Love you too, baby. Speaking of - we can skype the baby when we get in?"

"Sure."

"Might be the only chance we get."

She was right. After tonight, it would be full throttle.


	8. Chapter 8

**Close Encounters 29**

* * *

Cuba was a quick stop. Exchanging one pilot for another, one private plane for another similar one. The tail markings were curiously rubbed out, blurred the golden light was playing tricks on her eyes. But that wasn't it.

"Is this a cartel plane?" Kate murmured, unloosing her fingers from his.

He gave her a sideways look and she knew enough to shut up. From Cuba, they were flying into Bogotá, the capital city of Colombia, and from there it would be a commercial flight to Cartagena, the coastal resort town where they would have their base of operations. Kate had mixed feelings about this trip, and she didn't know where the root cause lay.

Was it Salome? Was it Castle himself? Was it some lingering effect of the island, or the regimen, or La Lune's death?

That woman had been Colin Hunt's mother. Damn. Sometimes it still knocked her breathless, how intricate the web John Black had woven around them all, how tightly the bindings.

Would they ever be free of him?

"Go on up," Castle said then. "I'm going to have a chat with the pilot."

Which meant a bribe, a prearranged amount for usual passenger fare, smuggling people and goods across the borders. This was the part of spy work she despised, because it smacked of unethical practices, and because the CIA was steeped in this kind of thing. It came back to bite them because the groups and organizations the CIA paid off to fight the enemy only grew to become the enemy.

Breaking the law was breaking the law, and letting one group do it because it was convenient was no way to ensure a peaceful world.

But she ignored her conscience and climbed up the short flight of fold down stairs and into the body of the plane. Eight empty seats, cramped, with cargo stuffed into the back. Cocaine was smuggled out of Colombia, but what was smuggled back in?

She resisted the temptation to look, but she made note of the details. It wasn't okay that the CIA still funded these kinds of back channel methods, but it could have been simply Castle calling on old marks, old contacts, testing his long-dropped network. Either way, when she got home, she was shutting this down.

She'd have to break it to him gently.

After a time, Castle crawled in to sit beside her, claiming the bench seat where she'd settled, and he hunched forward with his elbows on his knees, rubbed his eyes again.

"Hey," she said, paying attention. "You've been taking the stabilizers, haven't you?"

"Yeah," he said, nodding into his hands.

"And you brought a full kit?" she pressed.

"Yeah, Kate, I brought extra. Just - don't like what I have to do sometimes, baby."

She laid her hand on his back and leaned in against his shoulder blade, kissed the nape of his neck. Why did she ever worry? Why did she ever think he wasn't on her side in this? He didn't like the drug smuggling either; he wasn't happy with the black market program his father had built under the auspices of the CIA, and she knew that.

"I'm proud of you," she said at his ear, her heart beating between her breasts where she was pressed against his arm. "Did you know that? I don't know if I've ever said it, but you deserve to know. You make me proud to be your partner. Your wife. The mother of your son. I feel lucky."

His head turned, surprise washing down his face. "Kate."

She swallowed it back. "I put you through a lot of shit, Castle, and I know it. I don't always mean to, and sometimes I do mean to, sometimes it's the only right choice, but it's costed us. I wonder sometimes if the price has been too high-"

"No."

She paused, hesitation closing up her throat.

He shook his head. "I'd pay any cost for you." And then his glare pierced her. "You are invaluable, without price. Nothing that has happened to us could even begin to measure up to having you."

She let out a shaky breath and gave him a smile, but damn how watery it was, how weak it felt on her face.

"Don't you trust me?" he growled.

That caught her attention, snapped her upright. "Of course I do."

"Then trust that I know how I feel about you." He snagged the back of her neck, his force - as always - making her heart pound in that exciting mix of danger and arousal. "Not just feel. Damn, woman, that is such an inadequate word. You are my life. Trust that."

She nodded, wordless, as it always happened to her when her feelings - her life - outweighed her ability to comprehend. She snaked her arm around his neck and hooked a leg over his knee and tried to press her whole body into his heart.

It was all she had. He seemed mollified.

* * *

Castle glanced once to his wife and saw her shrugging their gear onto her back. He resumed coordination with the cab driver, slicking the bills into the man's hand to ensure he came back at the prearranged time. They had to be back in the city by nightfall.

Assurances were made in Spanish and when Castle turned around, Kate had slung the other bag across her body and was holding out his own to him. He took it, and then he took his 'conservationist' backpack filled with spy tools, and he followed her down the brick path through the garden.

Palm trees fanned in the breeze that came off the ocean only a hundred meters away. A weeping willow seemed out of place, and Spanish moss clung to its branches to create a curtain of soft tendrils that touched his face as they stirred in Kate's wake. She turned back and gave him a look, sharing the strange wonder of their isolated villa on the promontory of the bay.

Orchids clung to tree roots and nestled in the crooks of trunks, bright purple and soft pink and electric white, orchids overgrown and massive in the humidity and the heat. The sun was brilliant but the leaves striped bold blocks of shade across the path, and they went from sweat to cool relief and back again.

He could see the villa rising up behind the walls, three stories of brightly colored adobe and terra cotta tile, wrought iron grillwork and skinny balconies at every window. At the far end of the path was the villa's gate, set into the adobe walls, and Kate stopped to dig the key out of her bag's pocket.

Iron and old, it dwarfed her palm, an incongruous blue plastic tag tied by a wire to one curved scallop. They had picked it up at the storage locker in the Bogotá airport, along with half their gear, and Kate had appropriated the mission packet to take care of all the details. His Spanish was better than hers, so he'd been left with getting them transportation.

She unlocked the gate and stepped aside to let him enter ahead of her, a reverse chivalry that made him feel oddly humbled, cared for, as if it was more than just mere politeness or even the usual training. When they'd first started working together, it had been strange to have her go first, taking point when that was usually his job as the junior operative on Mark Eastman's team.

He'd had to stifle his instincts at home as well, letting her go ahead of him when they were off-duty because it was a gentlemanly thing to do. If she went first, she was the one exposed, the first man through the breached door. But home wasn't a breached door, home wasn't a volatile unknown. And she _was_ the junior on the team, so she usually went first.

But not here, not in a villa previously swept by their man in Colombia with the key delivered safely to the storage locker. And having her wait for him to go first was only Kate being Kate, but now he was over-analyzing, reading things into it, feeling a little too sentimental.

And why?

He was upset. This mission made him anxious, and Salome had him worried because of all she had known about him, all she thought she knew, professionally and personally, about him. Though at the time, none of those things had felt personal because every exchange had been a transaction, just as he'd told Kate on the plane yesterday.

He didn't want Salome _knowing_ the man he was now.

She'd known his body minutely, had always joked when she'd stripped his clothes off that she was checking his ass for bugs. She had liked to use her nails, something Kate didn't really do, not purposefully at least, and now all of it made him uncomfortable. _Thinking_ about Salome and Kate together made him seriously uncomfortable.

Kate knew his body. Kate _had_ his body - and his heart and soul as well, and he didn't like this.

He didn't like it.

"Baby?" Kate's fingers curled around his forearm as she closed the gate, and she tugged to lead him forward into the villa's courtyard. He followed her silently, taking deep breaths of the humid perfumed air, scanning the villa's interior walls with practiced eyes.

Discipline. Strategy. Effort.

He wouldn't pitch a fit like a child. He had a job to do. Salome - whatever her predilections - had sensitive CIA knowledge about their operation in Colombia. He was fine.

Kate's hand released his arm and she stepped up to the fountain, let her fingers play in the spray. She glanced back at him and her shoes scuffed the tile and made a pretty sound to echo the water, and his heart flipped at the look on her face.

"We should take James to places like these," she said. "I don't mean on mission. But travel with him. Paris and Colombia, Prague and Tunisia. He should see the world, be familiar and comfortable in it. Just as you are."

"Yeah," he said, "and you too. You're a natural." He realized she was thinking about how entranced their son would be by this fountain. And the sky, and the garden heavy with flowers, and the Spanish moss and weeping willow and the palm trees. And entranced with his mother as well. How could you not be entranced with her, that delicate and strong darkness in the bright sunlight?

She came back to him and the wet of her fingers cooled his brow. She kissed him very softly with her smile, still framing his face. "Summers on our island, winters in the world."

"You're beautiful and I love you," he sighed, kissing the corner of her smile so he wouldn't smudge it.

She grinned wider and tried to push into him, but their bags and gear were awkward and in the way. He gripped the strap of her backpack and lifted it off of her, and she turned out of it, shrugging it off with his help.

She patted his chest and nodded towards the atrium door. "Let's get the security system set up, unpack the surveillance gear, and then we can go into town. We'll drop the devices at Salome's spots, have dinner together at that little place you were talking about-"

"How romantic," he murmured idly, rolling his eyes.

"It is, sweetheart - it can be. There always is with you anyway. You're very romantic." She dragged her fingers down his sternum and hooked one in his pants, tugged a little with an eyebrow raised. "But you know I'm easy, Rick, don't you? I don't need the romance, baby."

He huffed at her, knocking her hand away to carry the bags towards the courtyard door. "Maybe _I_ like the romance."

She hurried after him, her fingers skirting the muscles of his back, his forearms, her touch electric and purposeful even in its purposelessness. "Maybe I ought to romance you, Castle."

"Maybe so," he growled, but he didn't really need it right this second. He was a touch away from combusting. "Though I'm not sure you even know how, Kate Beckett."

"Okay, then, challenge accepted," she grinned, a little wicked as she danced ahead of him and opened the door. "Prepare to be romanced, Rick Castle."

And in a sudden fit of clarity, her teasing and her tall body brushing against his as they came inside one of the most spacious and breath-taking vistas he'd ever seen, he realized. "I'm gonna regret this, aren't I?"

"I certainly hope so."

* * *

She found him outside at the back garden wall, setting perimeter alarms into the rock. He wasn't entirely paying attention to her, though she was sure he had noticed her approach, and she kept her hands behind her back until the last possible minute.

When he glanced up and gave her that crooked _I'm working_ smile, she brought the handful of blossoms out and presented them - a riot of orange and red-tinted pink, bright yellows flaming.

Castle laughed, eyes crinkling up, and he took her gift with grace, inclining his head as he cradled the flowers. "You've started, I see."

"Are you charmed?" she asked, stepping closer and dusting her fingers through his hair, brushing it off his face. She had meant _not_ to use physicality to romance him, since that was her usual m.o., but she couldn't help touching.

And Castle really liked to touch. It would work for her.

"Let's call me amused," he gave her, a lift of his eyebrow in challenge.

She leaned in and kissed that raised brow, very lightly, and then straightened up again. "Good job on the perimeter," she told him. "Thank you for keeping us safe."

His cheeks flushed, his head ducked as he fiddled with the motion sensor. She pressed her lips together to keep from grinning in triumph. How he loved to take care of her, how he was flattered when she noticed all the little ways he did.

"Is that the last one?" she nudged.

He nodded. Lifted the flowers to his nose. "I should put these in water."

"I'll do the walk around and boot up the system," she offered. "Do the safety check too if you want."

He looked amused again, but he stood up and gave her the portable handheld that monitored the villa's security system.

She took it from him but she slid her free hand into the crook of his elbow. "I'll walk with you part of the way."

"Ah, shall we take a stroll around the grounds after?" he laughed.

She bumped his hip as they ambled through the back garden. "This isn't Victorian England," she muttered. Beyond the wall, she could hear the ocean tumbling against the shore, a sound so like their island that she was counting on its mood to help win him over.

"No parasol? No button-up boots so you can taunt me with your ankles?" he teased.

"You keep this up, you won't be seeing my ankles."

He chuckled and dragged his free hand up her back, nested into her hair to stroke at her nape. She felt the shiver start down her spine and wondered if she'd last long enough for romance.

"I was thinking," she started, reining in her awareness. "When we take the taxi back into town, we could go for a walk through downtown, drop our bugs as we stroll. See the sights as the sun starts to set."

"Work and pleasure, all in one go. How _very_ romantic."

Kate narrowed her eyes at him; he was smirking back at her. "Just wait, buddy. I got your number."

"Oh, sweetheart, you most definitely do."

She knocked her head against his shoulder and pushed him on for the house. "Go put your flowers in water, Rick. I'm going to connect the system."

He waved his fingers at her as he headed up for the house, and Kate turned to walk the perimeter and link the sensors.

As well as initiate phase two of her plan.

She was going to be romantic if it killed her.

* * *

He was finding this entirely amusing.

Apparently his wife was taking this romance thing very seriously. She had set up the security system and then had come to find him in the living room, syncing the data from the tablet to the laptop all while leaning over and giving him a pretty good show.

Deep v-neck, thin white shirt, the dark shadow of her breasts below the material.

He wouldn't call it romantic, but sexy was good enough for him. And there was something about the setting: the villa was practically a mansion with six bedrooms and nine bathrooms, the inner courtyard made of intricate mosaic and white stucco, while the back garden contained the pool and brightly colored lounge chairs that were as wide as full-sized mattresses.

He had ideas about those loungers. He'd seen the bathing suit she had packed.

Castle sat on the living room couch, bathed in sunlight, watching the breeze ruffle the palm trees and making the Spanish moss spin. The flowers she'd picked for him were in a thin decorative vase that probably wasn't meant to hold water, but he kinda liked it, had placed them on the glass coffee table in his line of sight.

A handful of flowers from the garden were winning him over.

Bright, airy, the sunlight poured in through massive windows and made the flowers glow. It was a beautiful place, and watching her move through the room settling their stuff, rearranging things, checking the laptop, the lithe grace of her limbs and the self-assurance in all this light - it filled his heart.

Too much time spent watching her nearly die. He hadn't realized how much he had needed a chance to be alone with her, not struggling, not at odds over a plan of action, not fighting, not even parenting. Just the two of them. And sunlight.

And that swimsuit he knew was in her bag.

"Oh, there we go," Kate hummed. "It's up and running."

He glanced at the laptop and squinted, saw she had finished linking the motion sensors to the lights and alarms. "Running green on all indicators. We're in business. Good job, baby."

She grinned and turned back to the laptop, running the diagnostics checks anyway, as they should. The sunlight touched her hair and made it golden, her fingers skimming the track pad as she tucked a loose strand behind her ear. It really was a beautiful place, made more beautiful by having her in it, but it wasn't just all surface appeal.

Just like Kate, the place was seriously badass.

Those windows, though wide and floor-to-ceiling like their home on the island, included steel 'storm shutters' that closed down when the perimeter alarms were tripped. The glass was bulletproof, which gave a slight ripple to the perfect view, but meant they couldn't be caught by surprise even if the alarm was somehow bypassed. Every bedroom had a panic room - a miniature of their own at home, a closet really - and the bathrooms held arsenals stored under the sinks.

Beautiful place, but seriously secure. Top of the line gadgetry and security system meant that Castle felt they were as safe as they would be in their own home.

Made it seem almost like a real vacation. Or as vacation as they ever got.

Kate skimmed her fingers over his knee, drawing his attention. She wasn't smirking or alluring; her eyes were open and tender despite the teasing show she'd been putting on for him, all that bending over. "Do you want a snack? Late lunch? We didn't exactly have time to eat in the airport."

"Well," he paused. Dinner later tonight but if she was hungry-?

She patted his knee and straightened up. "Start running protocols and connect with the CIA server, and I'll make us something, baby."

"Okay," he said, a little surprised.

She leaned in and kissed his forehead, the kind of thing she did to the baby, and then she moved for the kitchen.

He sat forward and started the connection program, but he couldn't help glancing over his shoulder to watch her move around the kitchen. He didn't _think_ she was being consciously arousing, but she was anyway. She stretched to reach a serving bowl on the top shelf, changed her mind and put it back, giving him a view of the soft skin under her arm and the strip just above her waist where her shirt rode up.

She didn't even shift her eyes to look at him; she just kept gathering ingredients. He heard the stove pop when it began heating up and the butter melting in the pan. He could smell the lemon as she cut into it, picked from the supplies the house had been stocked with by the CIA personnel in Cartagena.

He turned his head back to the laptop, reminded of his work, and input his login and password. When the second level security questions popped up, he made quick work of it and then sat back and waited for the thing to connect.

He heard her puttering around behind him, and he could no longer deny himself the pleasure of helping.

Castle got up and went into the kitchen, coming up at her back and touching her shoulder. "All connected. Want help?"

"Sure, baby. Here - can you do the chopping?" She handed him the knife and nodded to the cutting board, and he went quietly to the task she'd set for him. Avocado, tomatoes, cilantro, onions, and finally the tofu. Their bodies brushed as they moved, Castle handing her what she gave him to cut, Kate's strength nudging into him from time to time as she put things together.

She made the salsa from the lemon juice, tomatoes, onions, and cilantro, and she spread it over the tortillas that had lightly buttered and warmed in the pan. The tofu and avocado were mixed with cheese she had shredded by hand, and then she pressed the tortillas over and let it all melt together on the stove.

"It'll only be a few seconds. Want to plate it for us?" she said, touching his back. "I'm going to see if my dad's back yet."

"Sure," he murmured, watching her walk around the butcher block and into the living room. He grabbed the spatula and flipped their tortillas, nudged them a little as he waited, and when they were sufficiently grilled, he set them out onto plates.

"Baby?"

He glanced up, saw Kate leaning back over the couch. "Yeah?"

"Will you bring me some water too?"

"Of course. Sparkling or spring?"

"Ooh," she hummed. "Sparkling. The citrus."

"Coming right up," he said, settling the plates on his arm and pulling open the fridge door. He gathered two bottles of citrus sparkling water, bumped the refrigerator door closed, and headed into the living room to be with his wife.

He settled everything on the coffee table to either side of the laptop, and Kate slid closer when he sat down. She skimmed her fingers over his thigh and cradled her plate near her chest, eating slowly, sighing and groaning as if the simple tortillas were the best thing she'd had in ages.

She might be laying it on a bit thick, but his body responded to her anyway. "Seduction isn't the same as romanticism," he said, elbowing her.

"Who says?"

He opened his mouth to argue, but he found he really couldn't. Damn. She might be right. Seduction might be the fastest way to his heart too.

"Lunch was perfect," she murmured, tilting her head to his shoulder. "Thanks, sweetheart."

"Thank yourself," he answered, licking his thumb free of avocado. "Your idea."

"Teamwork," she said, fingers caressing his knee as she checked her phone. "Oh, good. Dad texted me back. They just got home if you want-?"

"Yeah, definitely," he said, leaning forward only far enough to put his plate down on the table. When he leaned back, she took his hand in her own, laced their fingers together.

He lifted an eyebrow and glanced at her, but she held his hand as they settled into the couch with the laptop on their knees, sharing space.

"Hey, here we go," Kate hummed. She squeezed his hand and he glanced down, saw the computer had connected to the CIA's secure video chat application. "Let's talk to the wolf."

Huh.

She was doing all this work, coordinating the security system, making their snack, and now calling her dad. He was fine to let her, though he didn't quite understand her angle here - how was all of this supposed to be romantic? But he sat back into the cushions, digging his shoulders in to get comfortable, while Kate texted her dad to get on the program at his end.

It wasn't really skype, but for lack of a better term (the CIA's penchant for acronyms made it R.V.O.C.E and not even the Army could make slang out of that one), Kate had started calling it skype. She wriggled beside him when they saw Jim had logged in, and Kate made the call.

Her father answered and the video went through, crystal clear picture of James standing up before the coffee table, clapping at the sudden display of his parents onscreen. Castle grinned and sat forward, elbows on his knees, and made the hand-sign for acknowledgement. It was his usual greeting for the boy when he came into his room in the mornings. "Hey, wolf."

James responded immediately, acknowledged Castle in a rough mimic of the sign, evidently so pleased to see them that he was giggling. He grabbed for the iPad on the other end, causing the view to tilt crazily until Jim could wrestle it back into place.

"You and your field signs," Kate murmured near his ear. She lifted her voice and blew a kiss towards the screen. "You guys are adorable. Aren't you? Daddy's little man."

His heart filled as James squirmed at his mother's attention, that shy and overwhelmed smile he gave her. "Ma-ma-ma."

"Think you're a mama's boy, really," Castle said. He turned to Kate and nudged her shoulder. "Look at how awestruck he is by you."

Kate dipped her head to his shoulder and squeezed his hand, her cheeks pink.

"James, say hi to Mommy and Daddy," Jim was saying, pointing to the iPad.

Their son slapped his hands on the table and babbled _da-da-da-da_ , going up and down on his toes. He had just learned to somewhat hop when they'd left the island, and he did it all the time now, that one-footed skip that passed for jumping. Always beaming his smile.

Castle couldn't help lifting a finger and touching the screen himself, and it made James giggle and glance up at Jim.

Kate leaned in against Castle's back and rubbed up and down his spine. "James, you happy to see us?"

 _Da-da-da-da_ , the boy chanted, bucking his head up and down, trying to reach for the iPad once more.

Jim had to pull the boy into his lap to settle him down, holding the screen on his knee, and Castle's heart surged as James's head nestled back into his papa's chest.

"Hey, Jim, how's it going?" Castle said, clearing his throat.

"We're good. Went to the park with Sasha, came home and had mac and cheese and green beans. He's doing good with the solid food - even the stuff with additives from the guys in the lab."

"Good," Castle nodded. Important that James kept eating the enhanced foods now that he wasn't being breastfed. "Hey, wolf, Papa said you ate all your green beans. Did you like them?"

James came out with something that might have been yes and leaned in for the iPad again, giving them kisses through the screen. Castle laughed and touched his fingers to the boy's face, found the cold warp of the laptop instead, surprised once more when he did.

Kate gave a mild sound and stroked the hair at his nape as if to say _it's okay, we all feel that way about him_. "James. What a sweet boy you are. I bet you ran around all day at the park. Did you slide?"

"Sing!"

"Oh, swing?" Kate laughed, both of them startled by the word.

"Yeah, actually, we did swing," Jim answered, looking just as surprised. "That's a new one."

Castle cleared his throat and clasped his hands together to keep from doing exactly like his son and reaching out for the screen again. "Did you swing, James?"

"Sing, Da, sing!"

"I guess you did," he answered softly. "Hey, that's a good word, wolf. What else did you do at the park?"

James's language was mostly grunts and babbles this time, chewing on his fingers as he did, but it was effort. It was communication, and Castle had started to wonder if they weren't supposed to be doing something different for him, something other than military hand signs and field signals. But he was engaged, wasn't he? He was giving it back to them, even if he didn't have words yet.

He'd figured it out in his own time.

"Love you, wolf," Kate was saying into the pause. "Daddy and I have to go. Something like dinner. Be good for Papa, and keep Sasha company for us."

"Shhh!"

"That's right," Castle chuckled. "Sasha is your pack mate, so you watch out for her."

"Shhh!" James insisted, though his 'sh' noise was mostly just hissing. But it didn't seem to matter, because here came Sasha, slinking around the coffee table and into view. James let out a grunt of triumph and threw himself onto the dog's back, wriggling in happiness.

Castle laughed and realized he was squeezing Kate's hand too hard, had to remind himself to loosen up. "There she is. Well, we should go, wolf. Have a good night, you and the puppy." He tore his eyes away from James and found Jim grinning at him. He knew he was mush. He couldn't help it. Jim didn't seem to think less of him for it. "Good night to you too, Jim. Thanks."

"No thanks needed. You guys have a good time? Can that be said about-" He gestured towards their side of the screen. "I don't know. Something like dinner, is that what you called it, Katie?"

He felt her smirk against his shoulder. "Yeah, Dad. You can say have a good time. We will, too. Won't we, Castle?"

He sighed but lifted his hand and cupped her jaw, fondness welling up. "We will. Why it works so well."

"Then I'll say good night, good luck," Jim offered. "James, say bye to Mommy and Daddy."

And even though he'd never quite said it before, James popped his head up from the dog and called out "Bye!", waving his hand like he'd done on the island.

The screen went dark.

Castle drew in a long breath. The program prompted them for action and Kate leaned forward to end the connection on their side. She quit the application, quit the CIA server after that.

Castle rubbed his hand at his jaw and glanced at her. She was smiling very prettily, demurely, sitting pressed against him on the couch. Saying nothing.

"Alright," he gave up. "So you're romancing me."

She grinned and rewarded him with a rough kiss, all her emotion in it despite how smoothly she'd played that call.


	9. Chapter 9

**Close Encounters 29**

* * *

The life of a spy required flexibility and adaptability, so when Castle suggested they split up in town to get their preliminary work done faster, she didn't complain.

He headed to his meeting with the CIA's district chief in Cartagena, and she went alone to the post office boxes. Kate flirted with the guy behind the desk in her stunted tourist Spanish, asking after forwarding her mail, dropping details about the work she was doing in rain forest conservation, but the clerk didn't seem suspiciously interested. Actually, he didn't seem interested at all.

She rented a post office box with only a little miscommunication between them (calculated, on her part, so that she might use the 'dumb American' excuse at some future date). She went to her box and unlocked it, checking that it was empty, and then when the clerk was busy with a new customer, she sidled down the hall and to the box that had been one of Salome's drop sites.

She pulled the key (formerly bloodstained, taken from Esteban's pocket and put in their mission packet) out from under her shirt on its long leather cord - the material kept it quiet, kept people from noticing it was there - and she unlocked the box.

It was stuffed with mail, and she took all of it, carefully handling the circulars and ads. It could all be junk, but it could also have something important; she wouldn't throw away any of it. She wished she had thought to bring gloves, but on second thought, that might have looked too suspicious.

She pressed the mail into a white 8.5x11 envelope and sealed it, pushed it down deep in her messenger bag.

She combed her fingers through her hair and tugged a little, placed a thin strand in the box's interior. If anyone checked the box from this side, opening the door would cause it to fall out, and Kate would know.

On the other side, she had no control over that. But the motion-activated pin-dot camera would record anyone who came to look, and it was easy to peel the paper with a fingernail and affix the sticky to the very back of the box, at the thin metal divider. Ryan had been the one to think of using them; he'd included a handful in their briefcase. Worth their weight in diamonds - and those were safely back at the house.

She locked the box once more and tucked the key under her shirt, back between her breasts. The metal was cool now, and it tickled.

Kate checked her six, drifted back to her own newly-rented box, and opened it again. Closed it. Headed out of the rental place. The air was pleasant, humid but not too bad, and the stores were jammed together down the sidewalk, bright splashes of color, tourists, food carts. She smelled frijoles and empanadas, and she took a deep breath and revised her mental timeline for romance.

She had about thirty more minutes before meeting Castle in front of the small public library that was the second drop. She had just enough time to buy a few things and further her plan.

Spies could be romantic. _She_ could be romantic.

Castle wouldn't know what hit him.

* * *

At the library, she approached him a little late for their rendezvous, but even though she was breathless and flushed, she came up on her toes and kissed the worry off his lips. "Got held up with personal errands, baby. My fault. Didn't you get my text?"

"I did," he said, and only that, and she knew he had worried anyway.

He trusted her, but she wasn't sure he trusted himself anymore. His instincts when it came to her, when it came to looking out for her, having her back in the field - he must think he had failed her so badly in Paris.

She didn't know how to combat that. Time. She had to give him time, and control her irritation when he scowled at her for being late to a loosely planned rendezvous.

"Let's go inside," she told him, adjusting the strap of her bag and taking his hand in hers. Romance had taken a hit with his worry over her, but she could reclaim her ground easily enough. "PO box was stuffed. Have it with me if you want to look at in here."

"Yeah," he said. "Study rooms in the back, from what I remember. We'll do that after we check the drop."

His memory was perfect, so unless the local public library had gotten a renovation - and it hardly looked used, let alone renovated - then it would be exactly as he'd said.

She let Castle hold open the door for her and she went on inside ahead of him, keeping her eyes on the scene, scanning the place even though she expected no trouble. He liked it when she was wary for herself, and she knew that.

He did seem faintly pleased when he came in behind her, passing the circulation desk and guiding her towards the back of the stacks with his hand at her waist. She reached for him, took his fingers loosely in her own, went slightly ahead of him so he could watch her walk.

If her hips worked a little more than usual, she was sure he didn't mind.

He had a hum in his throat when he came up at her back. They were hidden by a long row of bookshelves, and Castle brushed aside her hair, touched his lips to the nape of her neck.

"Local History Collection," he murmured. Her skin shivered for him, and she squeezed his fingers, following the brown placards with their dingy white letters. The public library had obviously been built in the early seventies and never updated, the smell of books spent too much time in the salt air, the single story structure with its low ceiling, the skinny iron bars for railings between the sections.

They wound their way to the back, passed the individual study rooms, then the group rooms, and finally came to a closed off section of Local History.

"At least it's not the rare books," Kate murmured, releasing his hand to push open the glass door.

When they were inside, Castle paused, catching the back of her skirt to hold her there. She turned to look at him but saw out of the corner of her eye - the Local History Collection had a librarian sitting at a little desk.

"That's new," Castle whispered.

Damn.

"You or me?" she offered.

Castle's jaw set, but the woman had already seen them together. "You. I'll get the stuff. If anything is even there."

"Sounds like a plan, sweetheart." She patted his shoulder and sent him on his way. He wandered the aisles of shelves, looking as if he were only browsing, and barely interested at that.

Kate approached the librarian - maybe just a desk worker, hard to tell. She gave the woman a polite but broad smile, and started in with her halting Spanish.

"Donde estan los libros sobre..." Kate fumbled through the descriptors, making something up on the spot, trying to garner enough attention from the woman, enough concentration on Kate's high school Spanish, that Castle could move about unnoticed.

The woman placed her hands on the desk and leaned in, as if to hear Kate better and thus understand. She had a patient look on her face, and after Kate's blushing attempt, the woman gave her a reassuring nod and launched into a long, complicated answer.

Kate got the rough outline of things, but she pretended absolute bewilderment. She lifted both hands in surrender and defeat, let her eyes go wide. "Um... que?"

"Ah," the woman sighed. "No."

"No," Kate repeated helplessly. As if _no_ was the only Spanish she understood just as it might be the only English the librarian understood.

The woman pulled out a pad of scratch paper and a mechanical pencil that was bright yellow, started sketching out a rough design. Kate was truly bewildered now, because she was pretty sure she hadn't asked for... whatever this was. A dog?

Oh, maybe that was supposed to be a map of the stacks. Interesting. It looked like a cow with large squares on its hide.

"Baby, you done yet?"

Kate turned as Castle's hand brushed her shoulders. The woman looked up, gave a brief little frown of consternation - perhaps because she'd lost sight of a patron in the special collections area - but she handed Kate the note and pointed towards the door they'd come in.

"Oh, gracias!" Kate said brightly, waving the map in the air. "Come on, hon. She made me a map. I think." She turned back to the woman with a little rush of silliness. "Bye! Thank you. Adios, adios."

"Adios," the woman replied, a faint little wave of her fingers, some head shaking as well.

Kate grabbed Castle by the front of his shirt and tugged him out with her, giggling a little as they went out the door.

She dropped the act once they were out of sight of the glass, folded the map once and dropped it in a plastic trash can at the end of one of the ranges. Castle was chuckling, and she elbowed him.

"Did you get it?"

Castle lifted his shirt very slightly and she saw he'd stuffed a thin volume down his pants.

"Castle," she admonished.

"If it's nothing, then I'll give it back. Don't worry."

"I thought you were - you know," she muttered, rolling her eyes. "I pulled you out of there by your shirt because the bulge was rather noticeable, sweetheart. You weren't fooling anyone."

"Well, sounds like I fooled you, didn't I?" His lips gave a little twist and he pulled her into an empty study room. "Want to keep fooling around?"

"No," she breathed, though _yes_ , yes she did, most assuredly. But that wasn't romantic, not yet anyway. "I want to check the mail and the book and see if she's left us anything."

"Too bad," he sighed, but he sank down to the study table and left her to shut the door. "Making out in a library is on my list."

"Baby, we've already done that," she reminded him, sitting down catty-corner so that she could press her knee to his thigh. She brought her bag up onto the table. "Remember that time in New York Public? James was in story time."

"Oh, do I," he hummed, his eyelids dropping, that feral remembrance on his face.

The lights went on in her head and she grinned slowly, reminding herself that this was romantic too - all the times they'd connected, come together, touched. Recalling those things.

 _Talking_ about it now was what was important for the romance. Talking like they used to, when it had been just the two of them, and he'd told her stories, and she had put herself inside them, and they'd shared those dreams.

Talking. She hadn't really talked to him in - years? Had it been years since they'd shared real things with each other? All of their time lately had centered around the regimen, Black, the program - and the baby.

That was a little depressing.

When had she last _asked_ after him? What was his favorite meal to cook, when did he like to run versus when would he rather lift weights, how many times had he called his mother this month, what did he remember from the time when he'd gotten that superbug and laid cocooned in sleeping bags with her at her father's cabin? She could guess because she knew him so well, but she had stopped asking after him.

"Kate?"

She startled, realized she'd been staring down at her bag, lost in thought, in a kind of horrified mental maze. She lifted her eyes to Castle, her beautiful husband, and she smiled.

"Just thinking about you," she told him quietly. "Got lost in it."

His surprise was a little comical, but it also pierced her heart.

* * *

She had changed after lunch into that skirt. That _skirt._ He hadn't even known she'd brought that skirt, and now as they sat close together at the study room table, the flimsy material did nothing at all to hide her from him.

The shape of her thighs, the shadow between them. The long line of her legs down to those platform espadrilles. The shoes had these linen wraps that laced up her slim ankles, so that it set his heart racing every time he glanced down and caught sight of her legs.

Caught was a very good word for it.

He was having trouble. Not that he wasn't being professional; he was very good at his job, and thankfully, not even Kate Beckett in a skirt could prevent him from keeping them safe. But it made his job difficult.

Hard, even.

She was pressed against his side as they sorted through the mail from the PO box. She was warm and he could feel her pulse in her arm, under his fingers when he accidentally brushed her wrist. 'Accidentally.' He really loved the faint scent of flowers that came from her hair and wafted up to him, and he breathed deeper for it, every last nuance.

"What did the district chief say?"

"He already had a guy on Alfonso, and on Arroyo."

"The Preacher," Kate murmured. "Arroyo must know he's being tailed. He must assume that he is at all times."

"One would think," he offered. "Though Alfonso sounds like he's something of a braggart and might go about business as usual."

"An asshole, you mean."

Castle's lips crooked. "Mm-hm."

"You can say asshole, you know," she told him, elbow poking into his side. "James isn't here."

"I'd say asshole even if James were here," he admitted. "But braggart was the term the chief used."

"Chief's name?"

"Ah." He rubbed his jaw. "I do know his name, but I'm not supposed to." Section chiefs and district chiefs were supposed to go by codes, usually just Groundskeeper or Lighthouse Master, depending on where and when and who was the Director in Charge assigning the damn names. But Castle had known the man before.

"You don't have to tell me," she said quietly. Her hand skimmed the back of his arm and came to the nape of his neck. Her thumb stroked his ear. "There are plenty of things I'm not allowed to tell you, even as the man in charge."

"Like what?" he said, swiveling his head to her and narrowing his eyes.

"Like Eyes-Only," she murmured. She pressed her lips to his deltoid - he had unconsciously flexed, tensing up at her statement - and he tried to relax. "Like analysts' reports that come in from other sections."

"Ah."

"We both signed a confidentiality agreement, sweetheart-"

"But this is more important than that," he told her. "Us. You and me. The CIA means shit to me compared to you."

Her hand cupped his jaw and stroked, and it sent pleasure all down his spine, settling down in his guts. More than arousal.

She pushed on his shoulder to open his stance to her, and then she hooked her leg over his thigh and pulled up, using his body to get herself practically in his lap. And then she kissed him, her mouth warm and rich.

When she nudged him back, her nose against his, she was breathing a little fast. "Which is why you don't have to say. I don't need to know his real name. Codes are codes for a reason. I would never ask you to compromise your integrity for something so meaningless-"

"Landau," he murmured. "I was always going to tell you. But I had to give a disclaimer first."

She sighed, her cheek pressed against his. He wondered if he'd failed some kind of test, or maybe passed. He didn't know.

"Baby, I really love you," she whispered. "You just turn yourself inside out for me, but I hope you - I hope you know I don't ask for it. I don't think I deserve it, really, how fiercely you-"

"You do; you deserve it," he said, drawing his arm around her body and pulling her the rest of the way into his lap. "But really, Kate, does anyone deserve it? The things I did before you, before I knew-"

"You do; you deserve it." Her thumb pressed over his lips and silenced him. Her kiss followed after, brushes of her lips to his with her thumb between them, as if in chaperone.

She leaned back and then slid out of his lap, into her own chair once more, her leg unwinding from behind his knee, proper again. He let out a long breath.

"The windows are glass," she explained. "And this we should save for later."

"Yeah." He lowered his head and sifted through the mailers again, spreading out the brightly colored ads and circulars offering fresh fruit or HD televisions. A bill for the electricity, which triggered a thought-

"Do you - need more?"

He glanced up, startled out of his track. "Need more what? Sex? I think we've got that pretty well covered."

She laughed, very brightly, her body leaning back into the chair and her hand coming up as if to stop herself from laughing. He reached out and caught her wrist, kept her from covering it up, all that amusement and happiness.

She curled her fingers down to his and smiled, quieting now, looking at him like he was everything. "Not sex," she said, a lift of her chin in acknowledgement or tenderness, it was hard to know. "You're right; we've got that covered. But words. Words from me. Do you have all you need?"

He grinned, a little crooked, feeling his heart fumble at her earnestness. "Baby, you want to talk dirty to me, I am up for that. Well, will be soon enough."

She laughed again, a short little thing that was more for him than anything; he knew when she was laughing at his lame puns just because she loved him. "Never mind, Rick. You just keep your mind in that gutter."

"You like me there."

"I really do. I'm not complaining, am I?"

He tilted his head. "Are you?"

"No." She smiled again and patted his knee. "Back to the mail. Get anything?"

He sighed, turning back to the job at hand. "No. Nothing from Lo. But I was thinking something before you sexed me up-"

She giggled, cheek knocking into his shoulder, an actual giggle that made his chest tight - or his heart swell, one of those. "Did I distract you?"

"Entirely. Thoroughly. I'm-" His fingers tapped against the electric bill. "Oh."

"Oh," she echoed, sitting up straighter. She tugged the statement out from under his fingers. "Why is she getting a bill? Wait. This isn't - is this another cover?"

It was addressed to a Camilla Zindel. "Not one I know, and not in the dossier. But - maybe."

"Or maybe a mistake?"

"Maybe. It's the correct box number though."

Kate gave him a worried look, and he was thinking the same thing. There was just too much he didn't know, too much that had or could have changed in the five years since.

"We're going to have to dig this out," she said. "Before we meet her. We can't go blind into that contact."

"Definitely not." He rubbed his jaw. "And I don't think this is something we can leave to the district chief."

"You don't trust him?"

He met her eyes, gave her a wincing smile. "I don't know _who_ to trust any more, Kate. Except for you."

It had been too long.

This was why he hadn't wanted this damn mission in the first place.

* * *

The book had yielded nothing, so Castle slipped it into the book drop on their way out, unconcerned with maintaining the site as a contact point now that Lo's cover had been blown anyway.

While Kate got a pedicure and checked on the last of Salome's drop sites - where she would leave their message with the owner who would hopefully do her part to get it to the woman - Castle headed for a meeting with Esteban's replacement.

The guy was green, and it showed, and Castle let out a groan as he crossed the street to the bodega. The smell of overripe fruit assaulted his nose, and he saw that cantaloupe had burst in their packing nests, five or six of them right up front. The manager was washing the sidewalk clean of their orange guts, and the new agent was rubbing his jaw with shoulders hunched just inside.

Maybe vandals or something. And of course the agent wanted to run after them like a cop instead of a spy.

"Ito," he said with a shake of his head. The man looked startled by Castle's direct address, but he fell in behind him and followed Castle to the back near the cereal. "Hombre, you look it."

"Que?"

"Verde," Castle muttered. _Green._ "Loosen up. Get a fucking cart or grab some fruit. Something. Do _something_ to make it look like you're here for any reason other than meeting me."

"Why are you talking to me?" the guy said. "Who is Ito?"

"That's good. A very good try. But you came with me when I told you to. Your English is too smooth. And I had you made before I even crossed the street. Ito is Junior, is it not? Esteban Junior."

Ito groaned and slumped back into the shelves. "Esteban is dead, man. Don't call me Ito."

"And you're his replacement. So straighten up and act like it."

"Junior," the man seethed, but he did straighten up. He headed for the row of vegetables directly across from them, picked up an eggplant and sniffed it. "I'm on Arroyo, but he knows it. I want to be on Alfonso, _hombre_ , so if you can swing it with El Jefe."

"Comandante," Castle corrected. They never called the district chief 'chief' - not here. It was always Commander, a play on commander in chief. It was a thing, but maybe it wasn't a thing any longer, judging by the way Ito slid his eyes away, pointedly not looking at Castle just because he wanted to look at him so much.

Ito sidled up to the lettuce, getting cozy with a few larger heads, and Castle pulled a box of cereal down and moved to the eggplant himself, vaguely noting the shapes of the aubergine versus the bloom of the cabbage, his mind drifting back to Kate and that skirt.

"Preacher hasn't gone anywhere interesting," Ito said, his shoulders moving like they itched. "I'm tired of hanging on to him."

"Tired isn't in a spy's vocabulary," Castle hissed. Was it so bad here that the district chief had given this job to such an idiot? Or was it more a reflection of the job itself? "If you're here right now, who's on him?"

"What?"

"Do you know the location of your man right this second?"

"I - well - he's at the bar - the usual bar - you know-"

He knew, but he dismissed it. "But if you're here, who's on your man?"

Ito looked blank.

Seriously? "Never ditch an assignment. Are you fucking kidding me?"

"You said top level-"

"Never ditch your assignment. Damn it. Now Preacher is in the wind and we have an asset _out there_ alone, not to mention my partner going to that asset's scheduled drop. You fucking asshole."

Not that he thought Kate was in any danger. Not that he thought the Preacher had anything to do with this. Preacher was old news, and even Ito knew it. It was Alfonso, the new one, that had started this. Either by inciting Lo to betray her bought-and-paid-for allegiance, or by taking the woman out of play, off the board.

"Go back to your man. Get someone to cover you," Castle instructed. "And then you leave a time and place, and I will contact you again."

Ito stared straight at him, dumbfounded by the brush-off. "We don't have time for this."

"Yes, we do. We have time to do it right. Doing it right will keep us all alive."

Let Ito learn it now, on a minor assignment, when his head wasn't literally about to roll. He dismissed Ito with a jerk of his chin and the man still stared at him.

So Castle walked away.


	10. Chapter 10

**Close Encounters 29**

* * *

When Castle showed up at the nail salon, he lingered just inside the open doorway. Despite the sharp odor of acetone that overwhelmed his other senses, he could always pick out her voice. He eavesdropped, as only a spy could, while Kate chatted up a captive audience who were putting the finishing touches on her pedicure. She was in one of those padded dentist's chairs, though he supposed they weren't called that, her feet propped up, a sparkling deep purple on her toes.

Despite the captive part, the two young women and the older proprietor were asking his wife questions like they were, if at all possible, as fascinated with Kate's answers as he was.

"Sam was the TA in my undergrad Environmental Studies class," she was saying, her smile as sparkling as her polish. "Oh, God, it's kind of embarrassing. I took every single class he was a teaching assistant for, just to sit in the front row and stare at him." She gave a cute curl of her nose that had the two younger women giggling with her.

"You said conservationists?"

"We study the effect of human populations on the environment, try to limit the damage," she offered. "We're hoping to get enough background for a research grant. And, actually, a friend of ours lives in the area, that woman I was telling you about? She has government connections for us."

"Cartagena is a very beautiful place," the women agreed, all nods and smiles, the reference to Salome seeming to go right over their heads. "Your husband, he loves it here, he brings you here?"

"Oh, yes. He was here about ten years ago, started the work, and then he would bring trips from the university to build on the research. I went on every trip I possibly could. Honestly, Sam couldn't shut up about this place; he told the most amazing stories about the things he'd done and seen. That's where it started - my love for all this." He could just see her gesture towards the nature outside. "Started with him."

Best lies were wrapped in truth, and he liked that truth. He _loved_ that truth, and the far away look in her eyes that was for show, but was also so real.

She roused, gave the women one of her genuine smiles. "I think he feels like this was his one big success. The nature preserve just down the coastline, you know?" There was no nature preserve, but there _was_ a protected area, and she knew her audience. Kate went on blithely. "He got this right. He did his job. And now to come back, and see what's been done, how it's changed and adapted and been made better or worse..."

She was the most amazing when she was being honest. And while the women who worked at this salon might or might not be in league with Salome, no one could doubt that the emotion and passion in Kate was real.

He shifted forward and came through the entryway. "Hey there, beautiful."

She lit up, and though he knew it was for effect, it still worked for him. All that light and adoration. He went through to the pedicure chairs, wandering into territory where he didn't belong, and he did his best to look like a conservationist-based Indiana Jones whom a lovely and eager student had fallen in love with.

"The wilds of the jungle await," he drawled.

She sat up a little straighter, grinning at him like he was the sun itself, and the two women at her feet withdrew their instruments of torture, allowing her to hop down. She was wearing those foam flip flops, and her toes were spread wide, so he took the sexy lace-up sandals from her fingers and then he took her hand.

"You ready?" He should've said her cover name, Colleen, reinforcing it to the owner who was supposed to be passing along their message. If Kate had even given it yet. And no, by the look on her face. She had only introduced things.

He trailed her as she followed the owner to the front desk to pay, enjoying his view of the strength in her calves and the pretty gauze of her skirt. As Kate got out her wallet, leaning a hip against the counter, her skirt swirled a little in the breeze coming in off the street.

The manager was smiling, clearly charmed by Kate, but she handled the transaction with a smoothness of long practice, not missing a beat. "It's a romantic story, how you met and fell in love. How lucky to work out."

"This is kind of our second honeymoon," Castle offered, smiling himself, showing just how charmed he was as well.

"This was our first research trip together. I took all of his trips, even the ones that wouldn't get me class credit." Kate gave him a look, a little played-up frown. "I changed my major just to be in his class, didn't I, babe? And you were dating that girl here the whole time. Even knowing that, I couldn't not go. It was miserable watching them together, but I had to know."

The woman clucked her tongue at him as she waited for the register to ring them up. It was a curiously new computer, and it seemed to be having trouble connecting.

He held up both hands. "You know she meant nothing. Just convenient." He kissed her temple, took a breath of her scent, barely discernible under the strong smell of polish. "You're the one who matters."

Kate huffed and rolled her eyes at the owner. "You hear that? Like convenient makes a woman feel better. But the funny thing is, I liked her. We had a lot in common, and we were _friends_. That whole time, and we still are now. She's the one who has those government connections for us, for the work here. Lo? Do you know her? She was the one who told me about this place, comes here all the time she said."

Actual spark lit up the woman's eyes, recognition and amusement. "Oh, yes, Lo! I do know. Most times, people come in here and say, oh you know this woman?, and it's smile and nod, pretend. But not this time. She's - what would you say-"

"Unforgettable," Kate supplied, tilting her head. "She really is. It's why we stayed friends despite, you know, winning him out from under her. Literally."

Castle's face turned pink, and he gave her a look; she smiled sweetly. The woman gave a little laugh, finally telling Kate the total - damn, she'd had the works, hadn't she? - and Kate dug in her wallet.

"Thank you, here." Kate handed over the legend credit card. "I'm letting you pay for it, babe." She patted his cheek and flirted with him, and he saw the amusement in her eye, how she loved to make him squirm.

"I'll pay for anything," he said finally, dipping his head and lightly kissing her lips. "You deserve it."

She flushed now as well, and her head came against his shoulder with a light tap, her hands squeezing his biceps. "You're sweet to me."

"Yes, well, _babe,_ I think we're being a little too saccharine for their taste," he said, nodding to the owner who had Kate's receipt ready.

She turned back and gave a little giggle, took the receipt. But she paused before signing it, lifted her bent head. "Actually, if you see her? Our friend Lo." A little impish smile she shot his way. "His ex. Would you tell her we're here. I can't - seem to find her, which is weird. We were such good friends when I was in grad school; I was out here - we were out here - all the time, the best food, the parties... but more than that, she's supposed to be facilitating some meetings for us."

"If I see her, I will tell her. Colleen, right? And Sam Hunt."

Kate's face showed nothing but a wash of gratitude. "Yes, Colleen and Sam Hunt. You remembered. Thank you." She signed her name with a flourish and turned to him, snaking her arm through his. "Come on, babe. I should get out of their hair. They were actually closed for siesta, but they opened up for me-"

"It was not a problem. End of siesta anyway. Always open for you."

They made the right social graces and excused themselves, heading out of the salon, Kate in her bright flimsy flip flops made of not much more than foam, Castle holding her shoes.

She wriggled her toes and glanced up at him, scanned her eyes down the sidewalk. Her demeanor dropped abruptly, and she led him to a bus stop, sank down to pull the foam off her feet. He handed over her shoes and waited.

"Well, what did he say?" she said quickly.

"Ito doesn't think Preacher-man's where it's at. He wants a go at Alfonso. Which is what I'd gathered, but I sent him scurrying back to his assignment. He'd left Preacher at a bar."

"You're kidding," she muttered, shaking her head. She was lacing up one sandal and he watched the intricate work of her fingers.

"Yeah, not kidding. You?"

"You heard me," she said, nodding past him to the salon a few stores away. "She remembered my name. She remembered Lo. But it didn't seem like she knew the underlying meaning."

"No, don't think she did. Just passing information along. Library drop is smashed to bits though-"

"So the salon is all we have left. I don't think she's going to be picking up her mail, do you?"

He shook his head.

Kate took his hand and stood again, her shoes putting her back even with him, deliciously within reach. "We'll have to do some digging of our own, like you said, but it's still on timetable. It can still happen. We've spread our names around, and if she can, she'll contact us."

He was afraid of that, but he nodded and laced his fingers through hers. "You ready for dinner? I'm starving. What looks good-"

"I made reservations, sweetheart." She leaned in and brushed her lips against his, a little touch of her tongue before she departed. "Are _you_ ready?"

He thought maybe not.

* * *

He was already well down the road towards eager puppy when they sat down for dinner.

She had asked to be inside the restaurant and not on the sidewalk in the open air, mostly for Castle's sense of security, but also because the tiki torches planted in the sand floor cast a beautiful, wild light across their bodies. She knew _she_ was having fun watching the planes of his face dance with shadow, the gleam of his eyes and lips, so she could imagine it was working for him as well.

She wanted to unlace her shoes and run her toes through the cool sand, but aside from the dropped-food factor, there was also the potential escape to think of. She was always required to think of the escape - at any moment, they might have to run.

She really loved it when they had to run.

The table was hewn of one solid piece of wood, the bench seats rocking a little in the sand. In the small interior of the restaurant, there were only about thirty or so of these tables, and they were widely spaced along the partitions that led to outside seating. Their table was against one semi-wall, Castle's shoulder was to the corner so he could be on duty - as he liked to be. She had been able to sit perpendicular so that their forearms brushed on the table, but still her back was to a wall as well.

He was debating the merits of alcohol with a furrowed brow, but she saw how often he lifted his eyes and scanned the restaurant for possible enemy action.

It made her love him all the more.

"Sweet wine," she told him, touching his menu at the selection. "A rose cordial, basically."

"I know you love that," he murmured. She ran her fingers lightly at the back of his hand, waited for him to gather his thoughts again after she had scattered them. He blinked heavily. "We can order a bottle. Take it home with us."

"Mm." Her lips turned up, though she was trying to be gentle, not as feral as she felt, having him alone on a mission again. "No onions, baby."

"No on-" Castle laughed, the firelight from the torches on his teeth, but he flipped his hand and took hers, squeezing. "No onions. Got it."

She squeezed back but made him let go, brought her hand to her lap to keep this from being about touching. Or at least all about touching. She hadn't dressed in a skirt and platform sandals to not touch, but she wanted them to talk too.

"How about this?" he said, leaning in against her arm to point to the menu. "The swordfish. It's expensive, but we could share."

She scanned the selection, noted the price with an eyebrow, but he kissed her cheek and chuckled softly as if he knew. She was an analyst at heart, wasn't she? The number crunchers would be on his ass for it.

He was still laughing at her.

She nudged his chin away from her and _somehow_ her thumb dipped between his lips. He growled and snapped at the digit, but she was too fast.

"You're kinda ridiculous," she told him, wrinkling her nose. But they had hit eager puppy stage, and his face was tender and playful both, and she really liked that. Like knowing the romance was working on him even as she had to cross her legs under the table.

Contrary to popular opinion, it didn't help her arousal. It only made it worse.

He broke out the puppy dog eyes. "Swordfish. Come on, please. Share it with me."

"Fine," she sighed, as if put upon. "Swordfish it is."

He crowed a little, chest puffed up like his son, and she smiled indulgently and petted his arm.

When the waiter came around with their bottle of rose cordial and decanted it for them, she caught Castle's pleased smirk, the way he was crowding her side of the table and touching. He liked to touch, and while seduction hadn't been her main intention, it romanced him as well.

Sipping from her glass, she watched him tear bread from the basket and offer her a piece. She shook her head, and he shrugged and popped it into his mouth, his hands large and capable, shadowed by the torchlight. When he settled in even closer, she twined her arm through his and softly kissed the corner of his mouth.

"Hey," he said, sounding surprised by the gentleness of her kiss. "By the way, toes are pretty, love. Meant to say that."

"Thank you," she offered, though it hardly mattered at all. She'd chosen randomly, wanting only to get on with it. "You and James have a good talk?"

Castle snorted, slanting his eyes her way. "He's kinda entranced by the whole process, forgets I'm asking him questions. Tries to eat your dad's iPad."

"He's not even one yet, Castle. Give him time."

Her husband's face softened, and he ducked his head, two fingers dragging through bread crumbs on the table. "He'll be a year old next month," he said. "Almost exactly a month. Kinda - crazy, isn't it?"

"Yeah," she said, brought suddenly and immediately into this with him. Just as stunned. "We have a one year old. Oh my God. That's..."

"How exactly did that happen?" he laughed, shaking his head.

"What do you mean, how did it happen?" she snorted. "You were the one who demanded a son."

"Demanded-" he protested. "You were the one who said you wanted normal life with me, you wanted a dog and kids and a house. I got you the dog and then I worked on the rest of it."

Her mouth dropped open. "I - what?" A laugh bubbled up in her throat, almost hysterical. "I didn't want a baby!"

Castle sat up straight.

She groaned. "Castle. I didn't even want a _dog._ You came home with one."

"But you said - _because_ you said you wanted a dog, you wanted normal life-"

"I just meant," she said helplessly, "oh, Castle. I only meant you. I wanted you."

His jaw was slack.

And then she realized everything they had worked for, everything they had fought and nearly died for, _she_ had nearly died for - the effort of keeping that pregnancy and then keeping the baby _alive_ \- she had just invalidated it. She had disclaimed their son by casting doubt on their history.

"No, I-" Kate cupped his face and kissed him hard, trying to make up for that. It couldn't be made up for. "I didn't mean that. I wanted all of that with you, anything you could give me. I _do_ want it. Still in this story with you."

"But you didn't want to have kids?" he said roughly. "You didn't want a baby with me?"

"Oh, God, that's not it." It kind of broke her heart, the way he'd said _a baby with me_. "I was just - rather indifferent at first. Only at first, but the more you dreamed with me, Castle, then the more that story became my own. Became what I wanted for us. Not just because your childhood was so terrible, but because I lost my mom. I lost her and this way I get to have something of her back - even if it's only in our shared experiences, our both being a mom."

His forehead tilted into hers, a rough noise burred in his chest. She wrapped an arm around his shoulders and tried to pull him into her, tried to heal the wound she'd inflicted unknowingly.

"I kinda suck at being romantic, don't I?" she mourned.

"No, it's - not your fault I jumped to conclusions about the whole picket fence thing," he murmured. "But at least it - it makes our decision weigh a little easier, not getting pregnant again. My super genetics aren't holding you back if you only wanted to - appease me-"

"No, honey, no, that's not it." She palmed the side of his face and touched her lips to his eyelid, his eyebrow, trying not to be too overt in a crowded restaurant, but it was dark, and intimate, and they were up against the wall. "I wasn't trying to appease you. Do you think I'd ever?"

He gave a rough laugh, Tunisia between them. "No, well. No. That's true. It never occurred to me that you didn't want kids; I thought you had this picture in your head of what you were missing out on - because of your mom, actually, that it was what you'd given up to solve her case. And I wanted you to have it, like you should have... That's stupid."

"Not stupid," she whispered, throat closing up. "It's very sweet. And you can't have him back."

"Have who back?" he mumbled.

"James."

He laughed and tilted his head out of her hands, caught her wrist and kissed her fingertips. "No, wouldn't want to put him back. Might be messy."

She smiled then and tried to gauge the damage, but Castle didn't look damaged, only surprised. Stunned even. His worldview had altered, as had hers. She had always thought the little boy had been _his_ dream, to find a way to reclaim himself and his childhood. But his dream had sprung from something he thought he'd seen in her.

Who knew. Maybe so.

She reached out and combed her fingers through his hair, pushing it off his forehead. "You know I wanted the same for you," she told him quietly. "I wanted you to have back what had been taken from you. With your father. I wanted to give you - normal. So really, we wanted the same things for each other. We were the same in that too."

"It seems kind of unfair to James, neither of us wanting to be parents."

"But I want to be _his_ parent," she insisted. "And I know you do too. I saw your sappy face when he was born, Rick Castle."

That sappy face came back, a crooked lift of his mouth. "Yeah."

"Now it's just a funny story we get to tell. I thought you wanted a baby, you thought I did, so we did it. And look how lucky we are. We got the best baby in the world."

"Mostly your genetics, has to be."

"Love, the whole _lab_ says he's mostly your genetics."

Castle laughed, a response she hadn't been sure she'd ever get from him - not about James's DNA, about everything they'd been through to keep him. She had only wanted to keep him.

"You know," she said trailing her fingers down the inside of his arm. "When I did get pregnant, and I knew, and - well, that whole thing with Bracken's enforcers - all I wanted in that moment was _him_. James. I wanted him so fiercely, that boy you'd told me all those stories about. And how desperately grateful I was that he was yours, your kid, because he had a chance of surviving that. He might actually make it. And he did."

Castle's head bobbed, his throat working. "Yeah. I - pretty much the only time I was glad he was so super. Seeing him on the monitor, still there after that kick you took."

She nodded, eyes caught on his. She could still remember the burn of her every breath pushing against her cracked ribs. But James had been just fine. "Are we good?"

"More than-" He cut himself off, shook his head. "Kate. It's not even an issue. I'm just surprised. We are always good. You know that, right? Even when you make me so frustrated I want to strangle you, we're good."

"Maybe not _good_ , but yeah, I know, baby." Still, it wasn't fair to him, was it? They were always good and she had carte blanche to hurt him because of it. "You gotta stop letting me get away with this shit, you know. Treat you better-"

"Romance me?" A quirk of his lips.

"Yes. How's it working for you?"

"You should work a little harder."

Her jaw dropped, a stunned laugh popping out of her mouth, but he only kept that sly smirk and sipped his wine.

She narrowed her yes. "Just you wait, super spy. You have _no_ idea what I'm capable of."

"I'm looking forward to it."

* * *

Castle would like to have said she was wildly unsuccessful in the whole romance department, especially after that mind-blowing conversation about who had wanted a kid first. But the sad fact of the matter was - if Kate Beckett was in a room with him, looking at him like she adored him and adored their life together, he was romanced.

He wasn't ready to give her the win - he wanted to see what else she had coming - but his heart was weak for her and his body strong, and those were the prime consequences of having this woman. Strong and weak, weak and strong. All the right ways, all the right places.

She nibbled at their swordfish, sharing the plate with him, licking butter from her thumb. He tried to keep his hands to himself, he really did, but when she hummed that throaty sound and asked him if he wanted more, it was entirely impossible not to touch her. If she was giving him what went straight to his heart - attention and tenderness - then he knew he automatically responded with what went straight to hers.

His body close, his hands on her, making her heart pound.

Touch was Kate Beckett's love language, and he had very early on clued in to that. When they had first met face to face (kidnapping her) inside his interrogation room, he had practically _fondled_ her hands cutting her free of those restraints, hadn't he? His body too close, his presence inside her personal space. And not for intimidation.

For seduction. For romance. He had already been half in love with her.

"This is really good," she groaned, and then her cheeks flushed. "And I'm not just saying that so I can moan at you."

"Oh, no?" He smiled. "Too bad. I enjoy the noises you make."

She rolled her eyes. "I was thinking about our honeymoon in Cyprus. You told those women at the salon that this was our second honeymoon, and you know, it kinda feels similar. The villa, the beach, the pool."

"You were drunk," he said fondly, grinning at her.

Kate put her wine glass back down, wrinkling her nose. "I'm not getting drunk on cheap rose cordial."

"Hey, it ain't cheap, baby."

"You know what I mean. Did I eat - holy shit - I think I ate a whole jar of peanut butter. Drunk."

His eyebrows went up, slowly, and he gestured south.

Her eyes widened. "What. I did... not." A squeak in her voice.

"You did. All over, and then sucked it off."

Kate choked. "I don't remember that. Oh, God, I sort of remember that." Her eyes jerked to his lap. "Fuck, Castle, that was crunchy peanut butter."

"It was an interesting experience."

"Didn't it _chafe?"_ Her cheeks were flames.

He was seriously enjoying this. "In the best way, baby."

She snagged her glass and tipped back the last of her wine, pressed her hand to her forehead. "Oh hell. I can't believe... yeah, I _can_ believe. Sadly enough. That's - entirely what you bring out in me."

"A lover of peanut butter?"

"Hey now," she roused, poking her finger - and her glass - at him. "You were the one with the whole jar of chocolate syrup after our wedding."

"Which wedding?"

"The reception - and the only one with _chocolate syrup_. Bed and breakfast, remember? You packed sheets from _home_ just so you could play."

"Peanut butter and chocolate are a really enticing combination-" he offered.

She laughed, cheeks flushing again. She put the glass down and twined her arm through his, leaned her cheek against his shoulder. "Baby, enticing as it is..."

"I hear a _no_ in there for some reason."

"Not a _no_." She patted his back and lifted up as the waiter came around with a platter of steamed vegetables, offering to refill their plates. She nodded, turned back to Castle with a little grin. "Not a no, just a not right now. I think Colombia has native offerings, don't you? Save the peanut butter-" She paused a beat, gave him a wicked look. "For Florence, like we did in Rome."

He sat back to allow the waiter to layer vegetables and brown rice over the plate, and he skimmed two fingers under Kate's skirt, flirting high on her thigh. Since she was teasing him with words - his job usually - he would tease with touch while they had company. Her eyes never left his.

The waiter left them to the relative isolation of their table, and Castle inclined his head towards her. "Colombia is known for coffee, love. I'm sure we can think of something interesting."

Her lips parted, all teasing gone, her face yearning, that look in her eyes that he saw in bed when she begged _please._ He wouldn't deny her, not when his own body clamored for her.

Castle leaned in, lightly tracing that place at her thigh, and then he touched his mouth to her neck, just below her jaw, almost at her ear.

Kate shivered and let out a little noise, her head tilting into him, seeking his kiss.

And then the whole room shook, china and glasses crashing, the tremble more than their bodies - the whole restaurant had felt it.

Immediately came the sound that only confirmed what they both had felt-

Explosion.

He was already on his feet when a shriek came from the distance, a scream closer at hand. Sirens wailed and there was a wash of red as the fire department and police raced past, heading in a direction they both knew.

Kate was at his side; her hand clawed his arm. "The salon. Castle. The salon. Acetone and-"

"Fuck."


	11. Chapter 11

**Close Encounters 29**

* * *

Kate Beckett came to a halt before the conflagration, the nail salon in a fiery ball of angry flames. The fire department was keeping everyone far back across the street, the radius large as the heat of the blaze was too intense, the fire itself wicked and hungry.

For a moment, all she could do was stare at those flames and the darkness that outlined them.

Three women had been inside just before she and Castle had taken their stroll through town, acting the cute couple, not quite acting. And now to this.

Her cop instincts screamed at her to rush forward to the investigator on scene to explain who might be inside, or at least coordinate services, offer a pair of extra hands. But a skirt and sandals reminded her that she was undercover, and she couldn't.

She couldn't.

She felt Castle tug at her arm. When she turned, he was trying to lead her away from the front lines, the crowded spectators. She followed him blindly through the night, his body lit up with the same shadows and angles as it had in the restaurant under those torches, but this was a brutal light, and his face was garish as he turned back to take her hand.

"I want to get a better look. Bit too coincidental, don't you think?"

She definitely thought so.

They slunk between buildings, backtracking a few blocks to avoid the cordoned area. Castle slipped them past the facade of the main street to the auto body shops and warehouses, the grittier side of the tourist town. She followed him down a delivery alley, stepping around puddles but hurrying after him as she felt the heat of the fire.

When they came to a fence at the end of the alley, Castle stuck a toe in the chainlink and started climbing. Now she mourned her choice of footwear for sure. But pushed against the fence was a stack of wooden pallets, and then with her super husband to help, she was bound to get over the fence.

"Rick," she called. He was at the top, but it looked like he'd already thought of her. He put a leg over and got situated, straddling the top, and he leaned back her way with his hand outstretched.

She got a foot onto the stack of pallets, climbed up them like a ladder - precarious as it was, the wood rotting and shifting under her weight. She grabbed Castle's hand, his knees clenched around the fence, and she lifted a foot and pushed it into the toehold his calf made.

Good thing espadrilles and not heels.

Castle grunted, but he stayed steady, and she climbed his body to the top of the chainlink fence. His breath was fast and hot against her neck as she sank down and straddled his thighs. He let go of her hand to grip a fistful of her shirt.

"Let me lower you down, baby," he panted.

"Are you-" She laughed and kissed him fast for being aroused in the middle of a mission, and then gripped his offered hands, her grip around his wrists and vice versa. Gymnast's grip. "Okay. Ready?"

"Ready." He leaned back to counterbalance her weight, and she got both of her feet on his thigh, slowly. He nodded and she lowered a leg over the fence, digging her other foot into his calf to help climb down.

A draft of hot air from the fire two blocks over swirled under her skirt, and she huffed, but she pushed her seeking foot against the chainlink to steady her descent.

"Now the other leg," he said, grunting as he took her full weight in his hands. He leaned with her body, lowering her down, his torso bent double until her feet dangled only a few feet off the ground. "Can you land?"

"No problem," she told him. "Let go."

A strange look went over his face, as if suddenly that was the last thing in the world he wanted to do - let her go.

"Castle-"

And then he did, and her platform wedges hit the pavement, turning both ankles. But she was strong and she caught herself with the fence, didn't fall, her ankles barely felt it. She stepped back and shot him a thumbs up and then Castle was scaling down the fence like a monkey.

He dropped at her side and took her hand, and they headed briskly through the alley and up the next side, coming around the back of the block where the trash was collected. They had to be more careful as they moved because police officers and firemen were stationed here to keep the fire from spreading.

But it looked like they were failing.

The fire was raging out of control; it had caught the side of the building next door, and a fire truck had pulled up to another hydrant, opening its hose wide to soak the rest of the block. The cordon had been loosened on this side, no pedestrians or onlookers, but there were still police officers blocking their way.

Castle pulled her to a stop beside a dumpster and they squatted down, watching the flames, the water that didn't seem to make a dent.

"Arson," she said tightly.

"Can't know that just by looking," he told her. They had to practically shout to be heard over the roar.

"It's too hot for an accident," she growled.

"Faulty wiring."

"You saw that place," she said. "New. Built within in the last ten years."

"Built badly maybe."

He was playing devil's advocate but she could tell by the concentration on his face that he thought the same. Concentration that was highlighted demonically by the fierceness of the flames.

"Why do this?" she murmured. And then it really hit her, _why_. "They were inside. Oh, God, Castle, those woman were all inside, weren't they?"

"At this time of night?" He shook his head. "Shouldn't have been."

"Then what would be the point?" Not that she wanted them dead, but if someone had done this deliberately, then wasn't it to wipe out the last of their connections to Salome? Cleaning up loose ends. That's what this felt like.

Something popped and groaned, and Castle hunched lower, dragged her down with him. "Attract attention." She ducked completely out of view, but he shook his head. "Not to us. Attract _our_ attention."

"Damn. Who?" She eased away from him, glanced towards the massive fireball. The building next door was doomed, though the fire department was still soaking everything on the block, hoping to contain it. "Who wants our attention?"

And then she felt Castle stiffen, and the unmistakeable click of a gun.

She froze.

"Damn it. Who do you think?" he growled. His hand tightened on her knee and she turned slowly.

Salome.

Holy fuck, she was a super model.

* * *

Salome Fernandez del Solar - AKA the asset known only as Lo - was holding a damn gun on him.

Which she immediately pointed away when she saw his face, though she didn't holster it, and her wicked grin lit up in the firelight like a jack-o-lantern.

(They were supposed to carve pumpkins this year. He and Kate had talked about a hay ride and pumpkin patch and how it would be the baby's first, and what the boy would think about it, how James would have so many firsts this coming month.)

Salome put a hand on her hip. "Well, if it isn't El Máquina."

Kate snorted. "Machine is feminine," she muttered under her breath.

Well, of course Salome knew that, as did he - _la máquina -_ but that had been the point. He was so damn neutral, so cold, such a machine. And Salome had been the one to name him; he'd somehow forgotten that.

Damn.

"Lo," he said tightly. "Do I see your handiwork in this?"

"You want to come away from here?" she said, her voice still that lilting, reluctant accent. As if she had, at one point, practiced a long time to get rid of it, but it hadn't worked. She spoke as if her root language was something completely different from Spanish or English both.

He realized he didn't entirely know her; he had _no_ idea where she'd come from originally.

"Why don't you tell me if there were people inside?" he said quickly, still crouched on his haunches with Kate at his side. He felt the need to prove he didn't need to prove anything. So he stayed where he was. "Lo. Did you check to see it was clear?"

"Oh, were there _people_ inside?" she gasped.

Fucking hell.

Kate sprang to her feet, her fury as blazing as the fire behind them, but her control - as always - impeccable. "She was your contact." She advanced on Salome and Castle jumped up as well, but he didn't stop her. "She was your responsibility."

"Well, now she's not," Salome said, rolling her eyes. She looked at Castle. "Who's the fucking killjoy over here?"

"Agent Hunt," he answered. "She's in this sector."

Salome smiled that evil, cold-bitch smile. "No, she's not, baby. I know _all_ the agents in this sector. And I've had most of them."

"Or killed them off?" he accused. "Well, now she's what's left."

"Killed them?" Salome gasped, playing it up so there was no way of knowing. "Me? Of course not. Don't be foolish, Castle. What would that get me?"

Kate stiffened. Damn, he forgot to mention that Agent Castle had been his code name for this one, back when he'd been trying out different names to distinguish himself from his father. He'd been Black in the Army, Castle in the field. Fuck.

"It's Sam Hunt," he said, not looking at Kate. "For this mission. If you fuck it up, it's our lives. Remember?"

"Sure, baby, I remember. You think I don't know how this works? I set this in motion. And now that you've come at my call, you're going to help me beat these fucking _pendejos_."

Kate turned a dark look to him and he pretended he didn't see it. "We're exfiltrating you, Lo. We're not playing your game."

She pouted prettily, turning on all that empty and terrible charm. She was in dark black pants that had no shine but which clung to her curves like a mystery, while her blouse was delicate and flimsy and feminine in a way that looked incongruous on her. Dark hair, raven's wing dark, and those soulless eyes that threatened to suck out a man's soul.

He hadn't _had_ a soul before, so he'd never been in trouble. But now-

She stalked towards him, brushing past Kate, and she slid her arms around his neck.

He caught her wrists and stepped back, not subtle about it. "Did you not hear me? We're not playing a game here. Your cover is blown; your life is forfeit. You're coming with us."

"Coming?" she teased, all lilting vowels and purring consonants. She turned her head to Kate, for the first time assessing his wife. "I suppose she's alright. Nice ass. But you and I are the main event, Agent Castle, don't forget."

"We're not having a threesome," he said, keeping the ice in his voice. "We're getting you out of the country to a safe house. What you do from there is not my concern."

She pouted. "Oh, but baby, where's the fun in that?" Salome leaned in and licked the side of his face before he could jerk back. "She's such a drag for a fake wife. Want me to kill her?"

Before his anger snapped, Beckett stepped in with a move he hadn't seen coming - and apparently one Salome had discounted as her being capable of. But Salome's foot was swept out, her arm pinned behind her back until it threatened to break her elbow. Salome was doing the splits just to keep from falling flat on her face.

"Yes. I'm a drag," Beckett said sharply. Voice emotionless. "I do it by the book. So either you're coming in or you're not. Makes no different to me. Your ass is flat."

Salome hissed like a cat and tried to flip out of the hold, but Beckett still had her, _seriously_ had her, moving into Salome's attempt to roll, and shoving Lo's face into the dirty pavement. There was an angry scratch on her cheek now, and honestly, Castle wasn't sure Salome didn't _like_ it.

"Was that a no?" Kate said, her voice mild.

"Castle, get your fucking sidekick off my back before I do something she'll regret."

"I think she has you well in hand," Castle answered, entirely amused. But at the same time, he kicked Salome's knee out, knocking out his support, and she went all the way down. He pressed his palm to the middle of her back, leaned in over her. "We don't kill civilians, Lo. Not on purpose. Are you in or are you out?"

There was a moment where he thought she was actually going to capitulate. A moment of her harsh breathing (like arousal, he couldn't help noticing), her body heaving, her mind working over the problem.

And then she lashed out with a kick that caught Kate hard in the lower back, toppling her into him, and Salome was ripping out of his all-too-light hold. Castle untangled from Beckett and scrambled after Lo, running full tilt, but he'd taken his eyes off her when he had caught his wife, and now Lo had disappeared into the darkest shadows. There was a clang of boot on metal and he scanned the balconies above his head, but she was gone.

He returned to the dumpster where they had been made and found his wife on her side, a hand planted in the pavement.

"Becks," he hissed.

Kate groaned but she didn't rise.

* * *

Beckett batted his hand away and eased to a sitting position, her legs tingling. "Just pinched a nerve," she told him. "Give me a second. You couldn't follow her?"

"No," he scowled at her. "She disappeared into the darkness. I think she had an escape route planned."

Kate knew she really needed to get to her feet. He didn't like her down. She knew that, and she could fake it till she made it. "Help me up?" She held out her hands to him and he immediately had her pulled right up to her feet.

Of course, she couldn't quite feel her feet and her ankles were apparently a little weak from that climb over the fence, because she nearly fell right back down again. Castle caught her up against his chest, but she pushed him away, shaking her head.

Only enough for appearances though. She had a tight grip on his forearm. "She's watching," Kate murmured.

Castle stiffened, stepped away. "What?"

"She went up, above, right?"

His eyes narrowed.

She shrugged. "I've been studying up on her. She's doing recon on us. She lured us - you - out here so she could pick up our trail. I wouldn't be surprised to find her with a knife to my throat in the middle of the night."

"Fucking hell," Castle growled. He stalked away from her, heading towards the alley where apparently he had lost Salome. She didn't expect him to find the woman, but Beckett bent down and picked up the weapon his ex had left.

Interesting. So Salome hadn't been as in control of things as she'd planned. She wouldn't have dropped the gun and run without it. Had it been the change in Castle or had it been Kate's addition that had done it?

She walked slowly towards her husband, the weapon at her side, the warm metal heated by hands and flames.

Metal with her fingerprints on it now.

If the fire had been set, and it sounded like it had been, and by Salome more or less, had she dispatched her contact inside? Was this a plant now, a deliberate effort to tangle Castle in a police investigation?

Fuck.

Kate used the hem of her skirt to wipe down the gun, cleared her throat to gain her husband's attention. He turned very slightly, just enough that she knew he was listening to her while still scanning the rooftops.

"She dropped this. Accidental or purposeful, I don't know."

Castle muttered a curse and took the suppressed Ruger Mk II from her with the hem of his dress shirt pulled up, and then he ejected the magazine. She watched him push out every last round into a sewer drain, and then he tossed the clip in a dumpster. He held the piece steady and began dismantling the firing mechanism.

He kept the firing pin and tossed the gun itself behind plastic packing crates that looked like they hadn't moved in years. He handed her the pin and she slid it down into her bra with her lightweight burner phone, the model Ryan had given them earlier. She had to adjust a little, and Castle smirked, so she narrowed her eyes at him.

"Let's be circumspect," she told him quietly. She didn't plan on allowing Lo to just follow them straight back to their safe house. She wanted to make it damn difficult.

She also trusted Castle's instinct. If he wanted her to play the part of another agent in the Colombian field, maybe a little green, and definitely not his wife, she would do that. She didn't relish being marginalized, but she thought the element of surprise might be all she had here.

"Becks," he murmured.

She glanced away from the burning building, and for a moment, the darkness was so complete and the afterimage of flames so searing, that she couldn't see his face.

And then he reached out and hooked his finger in hers, a brief touch, before letting her go.

All she needed.


	12. Chapter 12

**Close Encounters 29**

* * *

It sucked not having her hand in his, or her voice in his ear, not having her body pressed for a moment against his side as she directed him. He'd grown used to it, how she touched, and for a man who'd had so little of that kind of contact through his young life - and his adult - he'd gotten scarily needy for it.

He liked touching things. He _loved_ touching her things. But now they kept apart.

She followed his lead as they took a circuitous route through town, acting like the killjoy. Acting responsible, professional, by the book. It was her public face in the Office, the way she handled her team of analysts, and he'd seen it before. Taking care of business.

In other words, kinda boring.

But that was only what they were supposed to be doing, because she was right. Salome would be watching. Salome was testing them out, trying to find their weaknesses, fucking with them.

Didn't mean he was happy with having their date night ruined.

"Romance is kinda dead, isn't it?" she said softly, about eight blocks away from the fire now, heading the wrong direction.

"Kinda," he sighed.

"She definitely killed it for me," Kate muttered.

He lifted his head, glanced at her, but she wasn't looking at him. He was going to have to pay attention, because he could swear she sounded - jealous? No, not that. She had insisted she knew what they were, what they had - how the hell could she not know? - but this was something else.

Oh.

Oh, damn.

Possessive.

Well.

That was interesting. "Uh, romance still kinda going for me," he said. "Interestingly enough."

"What?" Her sharp glance his way, her frown of disapproval.

"Not her, no. Just. You." He offered it lamely, but if he explained he liked her possessive of him, he wasn't sure that would go over very well. And it might ruin the seething tension just under the surface of things that was, actually, doing it for him.

She wanted to claim him. A little violently, if he knew Beckett. He wanted to be claimed.

No one had ever wanted to claim him before, not like Beckett.

No one like his wife. No one.

"Fuck, okay. Now I'm pissed," he huffed. Their night-in at the safehouse was effectively ruined as well, because he was going to spend the pre-dawn hours on guard rather than sleeping curled around her.

Not that he needed sleep; he was stocked up - had been for a while now, all that island living. But no way was it cool with him that image Beckett had planted in his head where Salome came in and held a knife to her neck.

No fucking way. He did not do well with knives at Beckett's neck.

" _You're_ pissed," she growled. "You just said you're still _seduced_ after all that."

He suppressed the urge to laugh, coughed instead as they walked. A foot of space between them. She liked to touch, not hanging all over him, but she liked that touchstone of contact. He knew that. She must be coming out of her skin to have a foot of space between them.

And it wasn't funny, but it kind of was funny?

"Just how strong your seduction is, Becks."

She huffed and Castle smiled in the darkness, wondered if she saw his amusement. She stepped a little faster, walking a pace ahead of him, and he just followed.

"Come up with a plan, Agent Castle," she snapped.

"Yes, ma'am." Wandering was as far as he'd gotten on that plan, even thinking about it for an hour now as they walked towards one of the uptown hotels. He knew Salome wouldn't buy their wandering, but it was important that they not lead her straight to their safe house. They had gone parallel to the location, bisecting the town for a while now, but it was time to disappear.

Salome hadn't pointblank said she'd set the fire. He hadn't seen any victims either. It was so damn hard to know.

"Castle?" Her voice was tentative.

"What?"

"I'm not sure my judgment is - clear."

He ruthlessly suppressed his grin. "If it makes you feel any better, I'm pretty sure mine isn't either."

"That doesn't make me feel better."

"Well." Tough. Life. "She's a tricky bitch."

She grumbled at him, and he tried to revise his language, but it was the most honest and true version of their reality.

"She is," he insisted. "She's always playing mind games. I used to be good at those, had to be with my father, but my head isn't exactly in the game."

"Your heart," she murmured.

No, his heart wasn't in the game. It really wasn't. "I'm not saying we should leave her out to dry," he said quietly. "I'd prefer _not_ to give her the shiny reward we've got in that briefcase, but at the same time, if it will tie up a very big problem here, then fine."

"I'm not sure she set that fire," Kate said suddenly. "I think she was pushing - trying to see how firm our resolve, yours, trying to figure you out after all this time gone."

Could be true. "And so what now?"

"We'll play her game," Kate sighed. "Unfortunately. Let her run off into the night and follow us around town. She won't learn anything about us. But _we_ might learn something about what's happened around her."

"You think it's not of her own making?" he muttered. A dead handler said Lo was in it up to her pretty little neck.

"It is, oh it probably is," Kate growled. "She did this. But. How much of it? And what knowledge does she have that we might need?"

Or need _not_ to get out.

A sudden dark doorway and the side entrance to a skin bar loomed before them, orange neon in the gloaming. And now he had the start of an idea. "Here, in here, Becks."

He darted sideways and was wrapped in complete blackness, the interior door between the club and the street dark as night with the entry bulb blown out. Kate had been on top of him practically before he had finished speaking.

Which meant she'd been prepared, on the lookout for their next move - and definitely ready to get the show on the road. He was glad for that.

She breathed hotly at his neck, her hair brushing his cheek as she turned to look through the glass in the entry door. "I don't see her."

"Wait for it," he murmured.

They waited a long time. But he knew Salome wasn't always patient, never had been, and she'd come closer to investigate. She would _have_ to, because she fucking hated to be beaten. She'd come.

And then she did.

Skulking across the street, her body sheathed in black, defined by the very darkness she used to try and hide. She was in an alley, leaning against the brick wall, and she lit a cigarette, watching the street for signs of them.

She hadn't seen them duck inside the nude lounge, but she'd come looking eventually.

He studied his former asset, musing to himself that he had once called her a _contact_ but never once had they ever really made contact. No connection there, nothing going on behind that woman's eyes. "Lose her for tonight or hang on to her and see who comes to her rescue?"

"Lose her," Kate growled.

He smirked. She wanted him alone, and she didn't like Lo, and he was perfectly fine with that.

"Alright, let's lose her," he whispered. "May I offer you an invitation to a strip club?"

She snorted softly, slapped the back of her hand against his abs, but she slipped ahead of him into the nude bar.

* * *

It was loud inside, the beat strident enough for a night club but the energy severely lacking. The bar was at the back, right inside by the door where they'd come in, and it held a thickening mass of male humanity, all watching the dancers behind them in mirrors that hung along the wall.

Kate turned her head to look more closely.

Dancers was an exaggeration. Definitely working for it.

"Should've stocked up on singles," she remarked dryly, lifting an eyebrow at him.

"Oh, you're funny," he told her, his hand on her hip so that his thumb dug into her bone. She could feel his grip like a bruise, and she found that appealing. To be possessed.

"No, I know they use pesos," she answered. Feigning ignorance of his true meaning and drifting closer to the stage. The dance revue was comprised of five basically nude women trussed in complicated harnesses made of strings of neon lights. They reminded her faintly of Christmas trees. "It'd be bills of hundreds of pesos, so they'd hardly call them singles. You know, I don't actually know the slang for-"

"Becks," he growled, dragging her away from the lights, farther into the darkness. "Not important. And you know I don't like this." He was trying to weave through the crowd of tables, the skewed chairs and men in their short-sleeved dress shirts, pits stained, their beers and mustaches and drooping eyes.

"Could be important. Never know." It was a depressing scene, here at the back, but she'd seen the side stage door, and so she resisted Castle's relentless tug and slipped out of his grip. She moved back to where it was fun again, near the stage where the younger guys congregated.

Castle followed because he always followed, because he was _hers_ , and she reached back for his hand when he crowded her. The stage projected out into the middle of the main floor, a long T column with a second bar acting as a kind of moat around the girls. The bartenders here were women, and they wore sparkling eye shadow, had glow sticks slung around their necks, bangles of neon on their wrists, their white skinny tanks printed with the name of the bar: _Moulin Rouge_.

Ouch.

They served, of course, absinthe and broken dreams, while the dancing girls on the raised stage in the middle of the floor spread their knees and humped the air in nothing at all like the can-can.

"Her skin is beautiful," she told Castle, nodding to the woman about her own age who was doing something lewd with a LED-lighted boa. "Damn. You think she'd teach me that trick?"

"Becks," he growled. "We are not picking up a stripper. Move back to the front where the real bar is. Delivery access-"

"Delivery access is so textbook," she said. "I want backstage. Come on, baby. I wanna see the beautiful costumes."

"I can guarantee you they lose their magic up close and personal," he muttered.

"Oh, you _can_?" she said, teasing him. But not teasing him. A little flare of possessiveness on her side of things for his _up close and personal_. "Should I invest in some fishnets and that - uh - is that a corset?"

Castle leaned in at her back, hands on her hips as they watched the girl gyrate to her twinkling lights. His mouth came to Kate's neck, his breath making her skin shiver. "Baby, I hate to break it to you. But you own both of those items, thank God, in more erotic and fuckable versions than her threadbare garments straining at their seams."

"So you _were_ looking at her massive breasts."

He sighed, tugging on her until her back was against his chest, her ass nestled at his hips.

She laid her hands over his, tightened his hold on her. She stroked her fingers on top of his fingers. "No, seriously, though. Those things are _monsters_. I think they'd break my back, pitch me forward."

His hands roughly came up her ribs and palmed her breasts, squeezing, even as her own hands covered his. She gasped, rocking on her wedge sandals, and then he gripped her hips and turned her around to face him. "Beckett."

She tilted her head into him, closing her eyes. Had she meant to make him furiously aroused? She couldn't tell anymore.

"Kate," he mouthed at her ear. With the porn music so loud it was feeling more than hearing, and she wanted to reach between them, touch him, but she thought that would be a mistake.

Especially with Salome out there somewhere.

"Your breasts are all I want," he said, licking her neck. "Now that you've made me sufficiently crazy for you, you wanna lead us backstage?"

"Mm, sufficiently?"

"Becks, stop killing time. She's not coming in to follow us."

"Damn," she muttered, turning her head to catch his eyes. She _had_ been doing that, hadn't she? She wanted the showdown, one more, on her own damn terms. _Come in here and approach me now, bitch._

She wound her arm through his and leaned in, kissing the corner of his mouth for knowing her so well. For calling her out on her stupidity. There was no point in confronting Salome a second time, even if it was on neutral ground.

X-rated neutral ground, sure. But still of Kate's own making.

Castle merely raised an eyebrow as if to say, _get on with it._

So Beckett grabbed him by the belt buckle and dragged him after her, heading for the side stage door and whatever was behind it.

An escape.

They should be looking for an escape. Not looking to prove something to his ex who wasn't even really an ex.

* * *

The hall was narrow where it scraped behind the nude bar, his shoulder brushing the walls as Kate led him back. That no one at all had stopped them seemed atrocious, but he wasn't going to complain. Not when they needed a covered exit and a way to get back to their safehouse without Salome - or someone more sinister - following them.

Finally the hall opened up onto the main dressing room for all the dancers, a hectic, female-shrieking hellhole that smelled faintly like his mother. He balked, but Kate tugged harder, and he spilled into the room after her, catching himself on a metal locker.

His mother was an actress, not a stripper.

Though, for all he knew, she might have been.

The dressing room was like a combination of a men's locker room and a female harem, and it was revolting. Body odor was thick, glitter eyeshadow stained every surface, and polyester, prosthetics, and unforgiving lights filled the space. Kate turned back to him with wide, wide eyes, as if she'd never expected this.

He could have told her. Then again, maybe knowing up close and personal information about lap dancers and strippers wasn't the ideal opener to a romantic evening with his wife.

He wanted his damn romance back.

"Skirt the edges, find the employee entrance," she said, pressing in against his arm. Making up for lost time.

"Yes, ma'am-" But he didn't get to finish, because the phone in his pocket buzzed sharply, four shorts, the American Morse Code signal for the letter H.

 _Home_.

"Castle?" She had swung back around to him; his face must have registered his shock.

He fumbled in his pocket and grabbed for the phone, pulling it out with two fingers to check the display. _Home_.

"It's - home," he croaked, lifting his eyes to hers.

"What?" she gasped.

"I need - quiet - a quiet place-" He was already answering the phone even as Kate went into action. "Castle," he said briskly, letting Kate pull him like a kite towards an alcove.

"Rick!"

His lungs released, air escaping as relief trickled through his bloodstream. He shook his head to Kate to let her know. Wasn't her dad. "Doc," he answered, not using the man's name. Boyd had a tendency to forget when they were out of the country, and he would call the switchboard to get in touch with him or Kate.

Switchboard had routed it to his phone, and the _Home_ identifier - every call from their real life came through with that ID - had momentarily panicked him.

"I know it's late, it's late, I'm sorry to bother you. But I have _wonderful_ news."

"You do, huh?" Castle scraped a hand down his face, lost sight of his wife for a moment. "Hang on, Doc."

She popped back into view, grabbed him, and he followed after. He ducked behind a partition to find a group of three vanities sharing one mirror, an open bottle of tequila, three shot glasses with garish red lipstick stains, but no dancers.

He sank into a make-up chair, widening his legs so Kate could step between his knees, her hands on his thighs as she stared intently at him. "Doc, you know it's - uh - vacation time over here."

"Oh. Is it?"

He smirked at Kate and she rolled her eyes - at both of them, most likely - so he cradled the phone against his ear with his shoulder and laid his hands on top of hers at his thighs. "Yeah, it is. I gave you guys our itinerary before we left, Doc."

"Oh. Oh, yes, there was an email. I didn't read it."

"Of course not," he said smoothly, smiling again. There was a shriek from behind the partition, something about _hombre_ and he really hoped they hadn't suddenly decided to take offense to him and Kate being back here. He jerked his chin towards the partition and Kate cocked her head, listening.

"Look, Richard, we've found something - made a breakthrough."

"Breakthrough?" he said dumbly, watching Kate as she shook her head and mouthed _not us; grabby hands._

"A breakthrough in our research. I know you're - on vacation," Boyd said. "I'll be quick. Just the highlights. First-"

"Wait, Doc, are you at the lab at this hour?" he said, frowning to Kate. She pulled a face for that, and he shrugged. "We don't want you guys killing yourselves for-"

"Richard. Focus. We have a _breakthrough_ in our blood research."

"Okay," he said. Not that he didn't care; he did. But Boyd called them every six months with a breakthrough and so far all it had led to were a handful of super foods they'd added to their diet and a better blood test for Kate.

"University of New South Wales in Australia has been studying genome editing-"

"You've lost me, Doc." Kate raised an eyebrow at him and he shook his head. "What's that?"

"Cutting and repairing genes. DNA, Richard. Repairing DNA. But here's the interesting part - the UNSW has proof of concept - done in the lab - which suggests that it is possible to turn on dormant genes, alleviating certain kinds of blood disorders. Threkeld brought this to me; you can't imagine his excitement."

"I literally cannot imagine Threk's excitement," Castle deadpanned. Kate laughed and he grinned at her, but he wanted to wrap up this conversation, get the hell out of here. They were moderately protected from Salome or whomever else might come looking, but he wanted the safehouse. "Alright, Doc, so this place has a new study. That's - good. That's a step in the right direction, right?"

"This is beyond a step. This is _proof_ of what your father was doing _all along_. This is what he did to you, to your genomes, Richard, _and_ it's what happened to Kate when she was pregnant. Echo's proteins did this-"

"Wait. Wait, hang on. What? What proteins?"

"You know how we've discovered that proteins are such a crucial factor in-"

"Yes," he said tersely. This was more than an interesting blood study. "Echo's proteins did _what_."

"Let me back up. I think I'm not explaining well."

 _You think?_

"First. UNSW did a study in which they used genome-editing proteins which we call TALENs to cut these specific genes that have to do with the production of fetal hemoglobins. The genes are cut at a specific place, a place where we want this good DNA to be inserted - DNA the researchers happened to leave nearby. A cell will naturally try to heal a cut genome by patching it with spare DNA - this same DNA left lying around."

"DNA left _lying around_ ," Castle muttered.

"Well. Inserted portions of DNA which are usually dormant - the human genome has more than we know, portions of DNA that have been discarded by evolution but never by our grand mapmaker. It's still there. This study just showed us that it's possible to turn on and off genomes that will allow red blood cells to produce more hemoglobin."

"Which is - me," he said. "And Echo."

"Yes. Your genomes are already on. Turned on indefinitely. Your hemoglobin isn't the same as normal adult hemoglobin, it looks more like the fetal version, but it's a third type, unknown type. This study says - look how easy this is to do in real life. Drop donor DNA into a red blood cell, use the TALENs to cut these genes where you want the donor DNA to go, and voila, third type hemoglobin."

He realized, suddenly, that Kate looked absolutely furious. She wanted to _know_. This was her baby - not James, no - the regimen. This was her thing, and he'd come to knowledge late, thinking it was just another way his father had fucked with him.

But how damn important it had become. How vital in their lives.

"Doc, I'm gonna put you on speaker," he said quickly. "Tell me this again, and for Becks too. No names, Doc. Understand?"

"Right, right-" Castle heard and then he had the man on speaker, his voice carrying over the noises that came from being in the middle of a production (and strangely made Castle miss his mother).

"Doc," Kate called. "Thanks for calling to let us know. What's going on?"

"A new study, K- ah. Yes. A new study. First, let me preface this by saying that Chinese scientists have already edited human embryonic DNA - a complete controversy, of course, but it's been done. Just as it was evidently done to your - um - man there." Castle got a flash of her smile for that, her _man._ Boyd kept going, oblivious. "This study, at a university in Australia, has proved in the lab that it's possible to edit the DNA inside human red blood cells. Using our body's _own_ processes to do it."

"Alright," Kate answered, giving Castle a look. "So it's - natural."

"Yes, yes," Boyd almost shouted. "Exactly. That is it _exactly._ It's a natural process. It means the regimen was all about altering DNA, yes, but your own _body_ did it to you. Insert the DNA you _want_ to patch into the red blood cells, and there you go, it's done. As for reverse engineering these stabilizers, this puts us _lightyears_ ahead."

"Because now you have his method," Kate said, her eyes going thoughtful. "The stabilizers work to do what, then?"

Yeah, Castle didn't know that answer either - they all just knew the stabilizers worked.

"Were you not listening?" Boyd said grumpily. "TALENs."

"Ta-what?" Kate laughed, glancing at him.

"Doc, connect the dots for us here, my man. And you told me about the TALENs, not her."

"Oh. Right, right. Okay, a TALEN is what you might call a combination tool - a designable protein. Transcription activator-like effector nucleases. They're artificial. We make them by combining TALEs, which are like binding agents for DNA, with a DNA cleavage domain, which is the thing that cuts DNA strands. Call it a robot that catches DNA and cuts out the bad parts. So basically the stabilizers are a kind of TALEN we haven't seen before, didn't recognize because they were just shaped so very differently. We even thought they were bad for you - they were causing damage in the brain, right? But the regimen is just engineering TALENs. Artificially combining two kinds of tools to affect the DNA in red blood cells."

"Oh," Kate gasped. "Oh, my God. You're - you know what it is."

"Fuck, seriously?" Castle croaked, getting it now. "You couldn't have _led_ with that information? You _know what the stabilizers are made of._ "

"Huh," Boyd said, as if coming awake. "Well. Yes. We know what the stabilizers are now. We know how they work. And more importantly, we can develop our _own_ techniques to repair damage done to or by the regimen. Safely. Even you, my dear."

Even Kate. They could fix the damage done to Kate. "What damage?" he said harshly. "What damage was done-"

"Castle," she whispered, shaking her head.

"What _damage_?" he growled. He was supposed to be in on this. He was supposed to _know_ this shit.

"It's minimal, really," Boyd said, sounding stuffy. He had spilled secrets, and now he was going all professor on Castle to not feel ashamed.

Well, he _should_. "Minimal damage is still damage. Why the _fuck-"_

Kate glared at him, snagging his wrist even as he moved to bring the phone up to his ear - and cut her out of the conversation again. "Do _not_ curse at our hard-working doctor who just put the puzzle pieces together on a very difficult problem. Doc? Thank you. Sincerely. Thank you."

Castle breathed hard and brought his temper back under his control. "Yes. Thank you. Now what fucking damage?" Somewhat under control.

"To her red blood cells," Boyd said with a sigh. "Minimal. We don't actually know what it's done, this damage, but it's possible it's a side effect of Echo's donation."

The blood transfusion from James. A side effect. Damage.

Damage to his wife's _blood_.

"Baby," she said softly, touching the side of his face. He blinked and tried to come out of it, but she took the phone from him and turned off the speaker. She put it to her ear, her eyes on him. "Doc? Thank you. We'll talk at home. Yes. I'll let you know. Really. Thank you."

She hung up, her free hand still cradling his face, and she pushed between his legs to get closer to him in the make-up chair. He stared at her, information colliding in his brain.

"They told me it was like - the scratches around the lock when its been inexpertly picked. Do you understand, sweetheart? The regimen tried to alter my red blood cells - _tried_ \- but it didn't work, because I'm not you, not like you. Sounds like I don't have the right genome sequence, maybe, according to this study." Her eyes unfocused, thinking, and she chewed on her bottom lip. "Actually, it sounds like the binding agent worked, the cutting agent too, but there was no handy DNA introduced to patch it with-"

"Beckett," he growled.

She came back, focused on him again. "Scratches on my DNA, certain sequences, inside my red blood cells. It was very minimal. And Threkeld was on top of it; he was testing me for blood disorders, but nothing ever came of it, sweetheart. It was nothing. But if we want, it sounds like they can go in and repair it. If we want."

Fix it. Repair it. Go in. Do some kind of experimental shit to her blood? Oh, God, no. No. No more fucking experiments. No-

"Come on, baby," she murmured, brushing her lips against his mouth. "I know what will make you feel better. Let me pick up a couple of strippers for us and we can take them for a ride."

Violent possessiveness tore through him; he gripped both her wrists and hooked a leg around the back of her knee, pulled him hard into her. "Like fucking hell I'm sharing you."

She smiled slowly against his lips. "Who said anything about sharing? We'll use a few girls as a decoy. Four or five coming out of a club isn't two."

"True," he sighed, gentling his hold. Back to work.

He had to focus on the problem at hand. They had to retreat, regroup, figure out what they were going to do with Salome. About. About Salome.

He had to stop thinking about Kate's damaged blood.


	13. Chapter 13

**Close Encounters 29**

* * *

"I can't believe you," her husband muttered.

Kate stepped into him and rubbed her hands up and down the tops of his thighs, trying to soothe him. He was avoiding her eyes. She pressed in a little closer but she heard a commotion from the direction of the stage, and she hoped they could make this fast. "I know you're upset."

"Fucking hell," he gritted out, not looking at her. "Up _set."_

She could hear conversation, louder now, more than just a couple of girls taking a quick break. "You're pissed," she amended. "We'll talk. I promise that we'll talk - you ask any question you like, and I will answer. But-"

"I know. We're on a fucking mission," he growled.

He knew, and she knew that he knew - this wasn't the time. His eyes were glittering when he finally looked at her, and it was a warning - tread carefully - but they just didn't have time for her to hold his hand about this.

A loud exclamation from the vanities had Kate turning, afraid the women were coming their way. She could see movement just beyond the beaded curtain. "Baby," she said, and then turned back to him.

But he was already moving, rising from the make-up chair and gripping her by the wrists, pushing her off. She didn't mind. He was doing what he had to do to get them out of this place, escape without notice.

"What are our options?" he said, pushing past her for the open doorway of the dressing room. The beads clanked as he moved, slapped back into her face.

She wanted to snap _don't be rude_ but she let it go, choosing to focus on the mission - just as he'd done by cutting past her. "If we stay here, we run the risk of attracting attention," she said. They were hovering in the shadows between two rolling racks of costumes. "We could take one of these?"

"I know you want to dress like a stripper, Beckett, but I'm afraid they'd notice." He reached out and fingered the material. "And I don't think they'd fit me."

"You sure?" she said, nodding to a rather tall woman with - oh, no. Her mistake. Not a woman. "At your three, bet we could make it fit."

"Oh," he said, sounding interested. Assessing. "Might work. Do you see any of his costumes here? He's a little smaller than me."

"Well. I'm not sure I want to try to run in their shoes," Kate commented, watching the cross-dresser add make-up to her face, hunched into a mirror not tall enough for those stilettos. All of the dancers wore them. The heels lit up with LED flashing lights every time they stepped. "Wow. I'm impressed. I don't think I could do it."

"Good muscle tone," Castle murmured. "Symmetrical bone structure."

She turned her head to look at him, not sure if he meant that. He was so absorbed when he was trying to figure out a plan, but he could be just making an appreciative comment.

Looked like appreciation. Huh, that was a surprise, and not much about him surprised her these days. "Drag doesn't do it for me," she said. "But that silk thong with his fishnet stockings-"

Castle grunted, rousing to stare her down. His ears were pink. "Beckett. Task at hand."

She wasn't the one who needed reminding, but she scanned the rows of hanging clothes, getting back to their options. "I don't see anything of his. But here's a pile of street clothes-" She kicked the rattan chair that groaned under the weight of sloughed off sweatshirts and jackets, track pants and beaded-fringe leather jackets. "Try these? Just to change our shape a little."

Castle winced but began digging through the pile until he came to a hooded sweatshirt. When he pulled it on, it reeked of sweat and cheap alcohol, but the hood would come in handy once they were on the street.

"This will work," he muttered. "And I think you're fine. You'll blend."

She narrowed her eyes at him. "I'm not sure that's a compliment."

"Damn it, woman. What do you want from me?" Castle growled, yanking her by the wrist towards the lockers against one wall. "She's got good skin and big breasts, you yourself said so."

She glanced at him, entirely too aroused by the anger roiling under that stone exterior. The man under the machine. She had loved that in him from the first, and fuck if it didn't do it for her now.

Another rush of dancers were headed their way, so she followed silently, not answering - they both knew what she wanted, and it was obvious she wasn't forgiven yet. His fingers did lace through hers though, squeezing in a form of apology, and she squeezed back, letting him tug her along the perimeter.

Must be half time. Or whatever they called it. The girls were flooding the main dressing room in flocks, talking and laughing loudly, already pulling packs of cigarettes from pockets on lounge robes or jackets, taking off feathered headdresses or draping LED-lighted boas on the backs of chairs or over mirrors. A group headed their way and Kate glanced behind them for escape, but saw Castle had positioned them near an unmarked exit door.

They were going to leave with the girls on their smoke break. Smart man. Smart man she loved beyond her capacity to express.

She thought he knew anyway.

Zippo lighters were coming out, click wheels that burned brightly and made their faces more garish in their stage make-up. The mob of women came their way and caught them up, pushing for the exit, and she couldn't fathom just how Castle managed this, every time, to look like he completely belonged, like he was both exactly where he should be and also like he wasn't there at all.

Long habit, she knew. She'd seen him fade to the background in a room, leaving her to be their decoy because she stood out. Just as she did now. She tried not to make eye contact, tried not to look like she was out of place, but it made it worse.

So she fell back on her original plan and made eye contact with every girl who passed, as if she were searching for someone, as if she had an ulterior motive for their sneak backstage. She also made sure the predatory gleam showed in her eyes.

A couple of the dancers looked at them in askance, but one flicked the ash from the end of her cigarette and shrugged, bared her breasts at them as if it happened all the time. Castle grunted something in inspection, but he shot Beckett a look as if to say this was all her fault. He wasn't pleased with her no matter what she did, even though she was doing her best to blend in.

Kate was in trouble because she had withheld from him. Not lied, exactly, since he had never specifically asked. But she hadn't told him everything. She had been protecting him, and he hated it.

She was in trouble. She knew it, but they both ignored it as they went out the back door and mingled in the alley.

Kate didn't notice anyone following them, but they were in the middle of the cluster of girls, trying not to stand out like a sore thumb. A couple of the women leaned against the brick wall, and Castle drew her to the shadows, leaning close but not with them, and she wished she'd thought to steal a pack of cigarettes so they'd look purposeful.

She was glad they'd decided against the stripper's costume because as they stood there, she could see every girl's skirt glowed neon in the darkness. Subtle it wasn't. But _not_ glowing also made them circumspect. More so than usual.

"Not sure this is going to work," Castle muttered at her ear.

"I told you we should pick up a girl."

He gave her a baleful look for teasing him - oh she _knew_ he had absolutely despised that conversation, early on, when she'd said, in her naive stupidity, _you're experienced; I can go with the flow._ Now that she knew him, inside and out, the mysteries of him and the stories he told, the secrets and the dark need, she would never say something like that.

Never suggest it. Castle had a faithfulness, a loyalty, that made it impossible for him to appreciate that kind of thing.

"Actually," Castle said.

" _Actually_?" she gasped, jaw dropping.

"It would teach you a lesson. Keeping important shit from me." His eyes glinted in the fluorescent security lamp. Cigarette smoke swirled between them. "I don't think you were ever going to tell me, were you?"

If Boyd hadn't spilled the beans. "When we'd come up with a solution, or at least a better understanding of it, then yes. I would have told you then."

His jaw worked, fury barely contained. He pushed past her and caught up to one of the girls, the one who had flashed her tits at them. His hand curled around her elbow and the woman turned back, a bored look on her face that lighted up when Castle spoke. " _Te quieres_?"

The stripper eyed him.

Castle pulled his wallet out of his back pocket and flashed pesos at her, a lot of pesos, and that predatory gleam came into her eye. _You want?_ She darted out a hand for the money and Castle gave her a few but he jerked the rest away before she could touch it.

The woman shrugged, slid her arm through Castle's and gave his bicep a squeeze, her enthusiasm not all that feigned. Castle turned back to Kate and grabbed her by the skirt, pulled so that she had to step forward or else lose the skirt.

"Rick," she said darkly.

" _Te quieres_ ," he growled at her and then ever so slightly inclined his head towards the street.

Ah. They were going to leave down the alley.

"Si," she murmured, sliding up at his other side, stepping right into the role. This wasn't the dancer that had been on the main stage, with the light show boa and the massive breasts, but she'd do just fine.

Castle put his arms around them, at their necks the way she hated - like this anyway; she hated it like this. Not possessive but owning. Ownership.

Although. Kate figured maybe she deserved it, keeping secrets from him about the regimen.

But she had known this might happen, that she'd have to pay for it. She had known if she said _my red blood cells are damaged_ he would have never let her off that island.

She had needed this.

Even walking down the back alley behind a strip club in a cloud of heavy perfume that couldn't hide the reek of sweat and cigarettes - she needed this.

 _Out_. She'd been caged for too long; she had just needed out.

She was built this way, and he was too, and they had both needed to be back in the field. If she had to keep secrets to make him do what he was supposed to do, to get him to do his job and train her back to fighting form, well-

It wasn't okay, no.

But it was what she had to do.

And she didn't mind the punishment he dished out.

* * *

It wasn't working. No sooner had they gone twenty yards when footsteps sounded behind them.

Hurrying steps.

The woman at his side turned her head, curious, but Kate clutched the back of his shirt and reached for his weapon. The footsteps were quick, light, the sound of a woman giving up stealth.

He wished he'd thought to ask Kate to bring those knives. Damn. He really-

"Inside thigh," she murmured at his ear. Eyebrow lifting.

Oh, she was good. She was really good. "That's why I love you," he murmured, that warm feeling spreading through his chest, loosening his fierce and frustrated anger. She might keep secrets thinking she was protecting them, but she was, actually, protecting them.

She always planned ahead.

He dropped his arm from around her neck, trying to move slowly, but from the street ahead of them came the squeal of tires - a warning bell in his head - and the footsteps quickened their pace. Castle hurriedly went up Kate's skirt, material riding high, his fingers exploring until he caught the slim edge of the neoprene knife sheath. He pulled one of the wicked blades - she had _three_ of them stashed in the sleeve - and fisted it, finding the balance of the blade.

The stripper croaked a panicked _que?_ and untangled from him, and he reluctantly let her go. The footsteps were clacking on the pavement, and so he and Kate turned to face the alley behind them. (Something niggled at him, something bothered him as he turned his back to the street and its traffic.)

But he had not wanted to wrangle with Lo again tonight. He had wanted to regroup, do some more digging, figure out what game she was playing.

Now that didn't look like it was possible. Kate had his gun steady in her hand, right at his side, the best place for her, best place for _him,_ and he peered through the darkness, trying to see past the glare of the security lamp in the alley.

A rush of footsteps, running now, and the flare of brightness - Salome's teeth. Bared.

Fear on her face.

Tires squealing.

Gunfire erupted from the cross street at their backs. The stripper - who had hesitated - jerked and now gurgled blood, going down, bleeding from a hole in her neck. Kate shouted and turned to cover him; Salome jerked like a deer in the headlights and wavered.

He had the knife. He could throw it and end this for good.

Shots pierced the alley, scattered adobe and pavement, brick peppering his pants leg, stinging his neck. He grabbed Kate by the arm and hauled her back towards a metal dumpster, leaving Salome out in the open, the knife in his hand and throbbing for a kill.

He just needed a little more light.

"Cover me," he growled at his wife. She positioned and took aim, let off a volley of shots as he ducked out of their hiding spot and checked the cross street.

Dark SUV. Tinted windows. But the asshole was aiming his AK-47 through an open side door, rattling off shots without looking much at what he was hitting. The harsh shadows of a traffic light against his face and hands.

He would have to get clear to throw the knife and have it count. But clear meant standing under the full light of the damn security lamp. No way he could get the throw off in time. He needed the damn light out.

"Lo," Kate yelled back to him.

He jerked his head to look and saw the asset was down, belly on the pavement and trying to crawl towards the other dumpster, blood streaked behind her and glinting in the security lamp. Did not look good.

"Give me your other knife," he shouted at Kate. " _Now_ , Beckett."

She had her skirt up at her waist and was yanking the second out of the sheath before he could finish her name. He gripped the first knife he'd already taken from her, and he leaned out on his knees. A furious rattle of gunfire, and he felt the heat of it at his ear as he sighted the security lamp from half-behind the dumpster.

He threw.

The light sparked and hissed, shorting out. Direct hit.

"Fuck," Beckett croaked. She had slapped the second blade into his hand. More gunfire, shooting blind now, shooting into the darkness, and Castle scrambled to his feet, juked to his left to get the SUV in sight, and brought up the second knife.

He released a breath and threw-

A wild force bloomed with violence in his guts, but the knife was already thrown from his fingers, speeding on its way. He heard the scream of a hit, the scream of a man with a knife in his chest, but Castle-

Castle was going down to his knees, crashing hard into the pavement.

" _No_." Kate's voice. Burning heat.

Oh, fuck. He'd been shot anyway.

* * *

 **the end...**

Stay tuned for **Close Encounters 30: Never Send Flowers**


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